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JESUS’ TEACHING ON THE USE 
OF MONEY 





JESUS’ TEACHING 
ON THE 


USE OF MONEY 


BY AS 
INA CORINNE BROWN 


Author of ‘‘Training for World Friendship,’’ Co-author with 
Garfield Evans in ‘‘The Choice of a Career’”’ 


NASHVILLE, TENN. 
COKESBURY PRESS 





CopyriGHT, 1924 
By Lamar & Barton 


U : 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


Tu 
My Fatser AND MoTHER 


Good Stewards of the Manifold Grace of God, 
Whose Lives Testify That 


**The glory of life is— 
To love, not to be loved, 
To give, not to get, 
To serve, not to be served.”’ 


ol 
5 


te aS NE oct 
Lai mahi giaht 
pin Vad itor 


Va 


Pau ‘ 
CUE RD 


vy) 
DX a Gal SUR ae 
LMI tia LEG 
: y ah 


me 





FOREWORD 


WE are coming more and more to the 
realization that a man cannot be wholly 
Christian until he is Christian in all his 
relationships. With this realization has 
come a new appreciation of the universal- 
ity of Jesus Christ, and of the fact that the 
principles which he laid down can be ap- 
plied to the complexities of life to-day. 
This book is an effort to find the mind of 
Christ in regard to material things. It is 
not a collection of proof texts. No effort 
is made to limit the study to what Jesus 
said about money. It is based instead on 
his attitude toward money as it is revealed 
in his life and teachings and in the as- 
sumptions on which he habitually acted. 

The omission of any mention of the 
stewardship of time, of talents, or of prayer 
is intentional, important as we recognize 
these subjects to be. In this brief study 
we make it our purpose to lead people to 
the acceptance in their own lives of Jesus’ 
attitude toward money and the material 


5 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


things for which it stands. However, the 
question of earning, saving, spending, 
and giving is so interwoven with the 
whole fabric of life that a consideration 
of the Christian principles underlying 
these subjects inevitably leads us to face 
anew the fundamental implications and 
the Christian life in all its relationships. 

Grateful acknowledgment is made to 
the George H. Doran Company for per- 
mission to use certain poems from “‘All’s 
Well,’’ by John Oxenham; also to Misses 
Katherine Campbell and Lelia Beth Rob- 
erts and to Mr. and Mrs. Garfield Evans 
for their helpfulness in making criticisms 
and suggestions. 

Ina CorInNE Brown. 


8 


CONTENTS 


Page 

ROPE UO CRIM ots as) ahs deol Bank et tie Soh atsal aaiate ah divide 11 
CHAPTER I 

Stewardship versus Legalism................... 13 
CHAPTER II 

Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship............... 35 
CHAPTER III 

Jesus, Otandaraa in ACGIUITINg ee tale wae ole 59 
CHAPTER IV 

Auministering as a CNrighian 2) oe) ety seve us ace 85 
CHAPTER V 

Mnemeparated FOrtion ve ios eee eT Ne ald 119 


CHAPTER VI 
Money ia Our Scale of Values.................. 147 


7 


ey 





INTRODUCTION 


THE battle ground of Christianity in our 
day is in the field of economics. To win 
the world for Christ means to win the 
social order for him. That social order is 
an industrial, competitive, material order. 
America, the one creditor nation of the 
world, is staging the warfare between 
materialism and the order of the spirit. 
We agree with Woodrow Wilson that un- 
less our civilization can be redeemed spirit- 
ually it cannot endure materially. The 
Church must face this problem if it is to 
survive as a saving power in our genera- 
tion. 

The right attitude to money and all that 
money represents is the key to the whole 
conflict. There is much confusion in our 
minds. The Church itself is in possession 
of large holdings; its members are in pos- 
session of untold financial resources. To 
face this issue fairly and squarely may mean 
a day of trial for the very institutions of 


Christianity. But the day of decision is 
as 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


not far away. A new conscience on the 
whole question of material and spiritual 
values may be demanded of all of us. 

The mind of Jesus is final. What he said 
and the attitudes he took are for us the 
last law of conduct. To discover, there- 
fore, the mind of Jesus regarding money is 
the most important step we can take in 
preparation for leadership in this impend- 
ing struggle. The author of this book has 
done an excellent piece of work in frankly 
facing these questions in the light of the 
New Testament. With fine discrimination 
and spiritual insight she has set forth the 
fundamental attitudes of the Master’s 
mind. 

This book will furnish the basis for a 
thorough study of what is one of the 
major issues before every Christian to-day. 
It will show us the place of material things, 
and how we may make them minister to 
our Christianideals. | Pauxt B. Kern. 


Datuas, TEx. 


iz. 


CHAPTER 1 


STEWARDSHIP VERSUS LEGALISM 


“Like all the rest, 

We had relaxed our hold on higher things, 

And satisfied ourselves with smaller. 

Ease, pleasure, greed of gold— 

Laxed morals even in these— 

We suffered them, as unaware 

Of their soul-cankerings. 

We had slipped back along the sloping way, 

No longer holding First Things First, 

But throning gods emasculate— 

Idols of our own fashioning, 

Heads of sham gold and feet of crumbling clay. 

If we would build anew, and build to stay, 

We must find God again, 

And go His way.’ 
—John Oxenham, in “‘All’s Well.”* 


Jesus’ Teaching on the 
Use of Money 


CHAPTER I 
STEWARDSHIP VERSUS LEGALISM 
“To every man there openeth 
A Way, and Ways, and a Way. 
And the High Soul climbs the High Way, 
And the Low Soul gropes the Low, 
And in between on the misty flats 
The rest drift to and fro— 
But to every man there openeth 
A High Way and a Low 
And every man decideth 
The way his soul shall go.’’—John Oxenham. 


Ir is a significant and encouraging fact 
that people are taking a new interest in 
Jesus Christ. While it is true that they 
are not so ready to accept without ques- 
tion traditional creeds or dogmas, there 
is a new eagerness to face present-day 
problems in the light of Christian prin- 
ciples. Everywhere a growing number of 
thoughtful people are asking, ‘“What are 
the facts?’’ and ‘‘What is the mind of 


T5 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Christ?’ Is it not time that we were 
asking those two questions in regard 
to our possessions? What are the facts 
about the way we spend our money? 
What is the truth about our own attitude 
toward material things? And what is the 
mind of Christ? 

We have talked much about steward- 
ship. There are many to-day who know 
its meaning and whose lives are bearing 
the fruit of its deep significance. There are 
others who have stopped with the tithe, 
and still others who, seeing only legalism 
in the tithe, have found no guide to 
show them the way to the rightful 
use of their possessions. ““Stewardship’’ 
is a much-abused and overworked word, 
but we cannot escape it or put it out 
of our vocabularies because we are tired 
of it. Its message is too potent. When 
we Clear away the distorted interpreta- 
tions which have grown up about it, 
we see its real meaning. And it calls us 
back from false standards to show us anew 
the mind of Christ. 

16 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


STEWARDSHIP DEFINED 


What, then, do we mean by steward- 
ship? Certainly tithing and stewardship 
are not synonymous terms. We cannot 
possibly call the self-righteous, strict- 
tithing Pharisees Christian stewards;! 
nor can we say that a man isa Christian 
steward who tithes, however carefully 
from whatever motive, and yet takes no 
thought to the Christian use of the rest of 
his income. 

The tithe has to do with a special por- 
tion. Stewardship involves all property 
or possessions in all stages of earning, 
saving, spending, and giving. Tithing is 
a good method, but it may be only 
an act. Stewardship is an attitude which 
finds expression in the way a man lives. 
It involves an attitude toward God and 
an attitude toward one’s fellow man. 

A steward is one intrusted with the 
property of another. It is always implied 
that the property is to be used primarily 





ILuke xviii. 9-14; Matthew xxiii. 23. 


17 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


in the interest of the owner—not that of 
the steward. In its ideal state this is a 
partnership in which the interests of the 
steward and the owner are the same, the 
owner being the senior partner who fur- 
nishes the capital, the steward the one 
who administers it to their mutual benefit. 

As Christian stewards we recognize 
God's ownership of the world. We recog- 
nize that health, earning ability, oppor- 
tunity, and even life itself are gifts from 
God. We recognize the part society 
plays in the creation of values. We see 
that resources, values, ability, and life are 
in our possession for a purpose, and that 
this purpose must be in keeping with 
God's purpose for the world as a whole. 
As children of the Father, our highest 
good and God’s interest must be the same. 
If this be true, then stewardship means 
that property must be made to do the will 
of God. God's supreme interest in the 
world is in persons. Then stewardship 
must value property for what it can do for 
persons 

18 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


Here is something far beyond a mere 
tithe. The tithe can be easily and me- 
chanically laid aside by the week or the 
month. But to make our property or our 
earnings accomplish the will of God! 
Here is something which requires care and 
Christian thoughtfulness, anda right and 
high scale of values. Here is something 
which involves an attitude toward all life! 


Wary THE litHE Is Not ENouGH 


All too often this deeper meaning of 
stewardship has been obscured. In our 
stewardship campaigns in recent years the 
major emphasis was placed on the tithe. 
The Churches were launching programs 
which demanded an increase of funds. Most 
of the Church members had been trained in 
Sunday school to the tune of “‘Hear the © 
Pennies Dropping.’’ Their giving had 
never gone far beyond the nickle-in-the- 
plate stage. These people had to be pried 
loose from the idea that all they had was | 
their own to use as they pleased. The 
tithe seemed an enormous amount to 


i) 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


persons who had been using all their 
money for themselves; the practice of 
tithing seemed a step far ahead. And so 
it was. 

We thought that if we could get these 
Church members to tithe our problems 
would be solved. We flooded the country 
with tithing literature. We preached on 
tithing, single sermons and in series. We 
wrote books about it. We went back to our 
Old Testaments and searched out tithing 
laws. We proved that the tithing custom 
was as old as time. Had not Abraham 
given tithes to Melchizedek in a casual 
way, as though it were even then an estab- 
lished and customary thing to doe? Did 
not Jacob promise to pay tithes to Jehovah 
as though he were conscious of having left 
undone something which was expected of 
hime? And,in the time of Moses, was 
not thecall torepentance, in which was in- 
cluded the command to tithe, an indica- 
tion that the Mosaic law at this point was 
simply a reaffirmation of an accepted cus- 





2Genesis xiv. 17-20.  3Genesis xxviii. 16-22. 
20 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


tom And was not the failure to tithe 
obviously connected with the backsliding 
of the people, since this custom was one of 
the first which they began to observe in 
order to be reinstated in the favor of 
Jehovah?> This law of the tithe had never 
been repealed, had it? Why was it not as 
binding as the Sabbath law? Thus we 
held up the big stick of legalism. There 
was much truth mixed with our error, 
and it was effective with some folks. 

But there were other people who were 
not reached by the appeal of legalism. 
The tithe was an Old Testament law, they 
argued, and was therefore no longer 
binding. Something had to be done about 
these objectors, so we began to search our 
New Testaments for proof texts. There 
were not many that we could use—only a 
few scattering passages that even mentioned 
tithes, and only one instance in which 
we could say that Jesus expressed approval. 
But we made good use of that one. Had 

4Leviticus xxvii. 30-32; also Deuteronomy xiv. 22, 23. 

5 2 Chronicles xxxi. 5-12; Nehemiah x. 35-39; Malachi tii. 7-12. 

21 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


not Jesus told the Pharisees who tithed the 
mint and anise and cumin, and omitted 
the weightier matters of mercy and justice, 
that these they should have done, and not 
have left the other undone?* Jesus had 
said so! What more proof could one want? 
We argued that he did not place much em- 
phasis on the tithe because it was already 
an accepted custom among the Jews. We 
had some grounds for that, and because of 
it we convinced a few more people that 
they should tithe. 

There were others to whom we appealed 
on the basis of self-interest. The other 
nine-tenths will go farther, we told them, 
than,.the ten-tenths did before. And we 
truly had bona fide cases to prove it.? We 
called up Old Testament promises of bless- 
ings poured outon those who triedit. We 
made vivid the pictures of overflowing 
barns and bursting wine presses. Jehovah 
had said: ‘‘ Try me, and see.’’’ We turned 


6 Matthew xxiii. 23. 
7See Chapter V. Pages 138, 139. 
8 Malachi iii. 8-12. 

2.2, 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


to our New Testaments and quoted Jesus 
when he said that as we give we shall 
receive: good measure, pressed down, 
shaken together, and running over. It 
was an appeal to self-interest—a cry of 
“It pays to serve God.”’ This was not the 
highest motive surely, but it was effective 
with some whom the other appeals had 
left untouched. And we argued, perhaps 
tightly, that it is better to give from a 
motive not altogether worthy than not to 
give at all. 

Then there were those Church members, 
really in earnest about the work of the 
kingdom, to whom we appealed on the 
basis of efficiency. The Church had 
a task ahead. How could the kingdom 
come unless it were properly financed? We 
compared the figures of the amounts which 
Church members were giving with what 
the Church would receive if each of these 
members tithed. We painted appealing 
pictures in glowing colors of every mission 
field manned and equipped, of social evils 
wiped out, of schools and churches and 


9 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


hospitals which would rise up. Some saw 
the vision and became tithers, because 
tithing seemed the best method of financing 
the Church. And their motive was not 
unworthy. 

There were others to whom the appeal 
came on a higher plane. We talked of 
stewardship, of God’s ownership of prop- 
erty, of man’s responsibility, of the tithe 
as an expression of stewardship, and of 
the other nine-téenths as no less a trust. 
And in this we were beginning to see on 
the horizon a Christian attitude. 


Wuere Dip WE Fart? 


In these appeals for tithers we had high 
hopes for the future of the Church. But 
the years have slipped by, and our hopes 
have not been realized. Tithing has not 
done for the people, or the Church, 
the things we thought it would. With 
some people the motive was not strong 
enough. The seed grew for a while, but 
it was not deeply rooted, and what 
might have grown into a sturdy plant of 

tf 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


stewardship withered and died. Some 
merely grew careless, some found it easy 


to let other calls and claims crowd it out; 
others thought they were giving the 
tenth, but, failing to keep accounts, 
gradually slipped back into the old selfish 
ways. A few remained faithful. But the 
Church has not had the great blessing we 
anticipated in those other days. ‘The 
world has not been turned upside down; 
the Church still calls for money; mission 
stations are still inadequately manned; 
new enterprises entered with hope have 
had to be abandoned. Where did we fail? 

We failed where we so often do. We 
did not go back to Jesus. We snatched a 
proof text here and there to prove our 
point that Jesus taught tithing. But we 
did not study the money question from 
Jesus’ point of view. We did not read his 
life anew with reverent seeking for his 
mind. We did not look to see where he 
placed money in his scale of values. We 
forgot that his indirect teaching, the 
stories and parables he told, the assump- 

a 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


tions on which he habitually acted, 
would reveal to us a more excellent way. 

Our appeal for tithers had touched only 
the surface of men’s lives. It did not go 
deep enough. They did not see a vision 
of the rightful place of things in the life of 
one who is wholly Christian. There was | 
no revision of their scale of values; money — 
still held its place of dominance in their 
lives; things still came first with far too 
many. No wonder tithing pledges were 
not kept. No wonder that the practice 
did not spread. Men’s hearts had not 
been changed; no money conscience had 
been developed; the kingdom had not been 
put first. They had not found or accepted 
Jesus’ scale of values. Money and the 
things which money can buy had not been 
put in their rightful places in men’s think- 
ing. Therefore we failed. 

Yet this experience has not been all 
loss. Many people learned to give as they 
had never given before. Many who had 
never given at all were led to a considera- 
tion of the needs of their fellow men. To 

26 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


many there came a real vision of steward- 
ship, and these have developed a richer 
life. For these we give thanks. But there 
has come to us a sense of our failure and 
a glimmering of where and why we failed. 
With this sense of failure has come the 
conviction of our real task. And there 
has come anew the realization that a man 
cannot be wholly Christian until he is 
Christian in all his relationships. 


WueEN WE Go Bacx To JEsus 

When we go back to Jesus we discover 
what has been wrong with us. We started 
at the wrong end. We find that we were 
trying to get men to act without giving 
them the motive from which the action 
should spring. Characteristically, Jesus 
goes to the root of the matter. The springs 
of a man’s action are in his heart, and any 
act that does not come from the heart is 
outward and on the surface only, and does 
not count as God sees things. Jesus spent 
a great deal of his time trying to get men 
to see that right thinking and right feeling 
would result in right actions. 


2.7 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


When Jesus began his ministry he found 
all about him men who were rigidly and 
mechanically carrying out the letter of the 
law. He found them slaves to forms and 
ceremonies. They were indignant because 
the disciples gathered and ate corn on the 
Sabbath day, yet they thought nothing of 
turning helpless women into the streets. 
They wanted to kill Jesus because he re- 
stored a withered hand on the Sabbath, 
yet they took the chief seats in the syna- 
gogue and cherished proud thoughts. 
They objected when Jesus released a poor 
woman on the Sabbath when she had been 
bowed together eighteen years, yet they 
blazoned forth their good deeds in the 
streets and announced their alms with the 
sound of trumpets. They offered gifts on 
the altar, but harbored thoughts of hatred 
against a brother. They would not eat 
with unwashed hands, but would have 
used these same hands to stone to death a 
woman no more guilty than themselves. 
They tithed with painful exactness and 
then used the law of Corban to escape the 

28 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


responsibility of caring for their dependent 
parents. They stood in the temple and 
thanked God that they were not as other 
men, and then made long prayers on the 
street corners and looked mournful that 
they might appear to be so religious as to 
spend all their time in fasting and prayer. 
They honored God with their lips, while 
their hearts were far away. Outward mo- 
rality was all-essential, while the mo- 
tives of the heart were ignored. 

Over and over Jesus tried to make 
them understand his way. He told 
them that their meaningless forms and 
ceremonies were like the whited sepul- 
chers that cover dead men’s bones, 
that the legalistic observance of the 
law was as absurd as washing and polish- 
ing the outside of a dish while the inside, 
where the food must be, was left sour and 
unclean.? He told them the story of such 
an one as themselves, who prayed self- 
_ righteously that he gave God tithes of all 
that he had; but a poor publican went 


9Matthew xxiii. 23-33. 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


away justified rather than this man who 
thought outward conformity to law would 
take the place of inward purity. 

Jesus was still speaking of these Phari- 
sees, who tithed so carefully, when he 
called them snakes, whited sepulchers, 
hypocrites—severe language for the Mas- 
ter to use—and then turned to remind his 
hearers that unless their righteousness 
should exceed that of these legalistic ob- 
servers of the law they could have no 
place’ in the kingdom." But the ears of 
that day were dull of hearing spiritual 
truth, even as ours are to-day. | 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus 
tried to make his meaning clear. He 
pleaded for them to see that it is 
the spirit that counts, that there is 
no virtue in keeping the letter of the law 
while tearing its spirit into shreds. “‘I 
am not come to destroy,’’ he told them, 
“but to fulfill—literally to fill full. You 
are following laws which are hollow and 


10Luke xviii. 9-14. 11Matthew v. 20-22. 


30 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


empty. Let me fill them full of life and 
meaning. Let me show you the higher 
way.” 

It was a long way from the laws of 
Sinai to the Sermon on the Mount. Back 
in the early days, when his people were as 
children, God had to deal with them in 
ways which they would understand. 
Through Moses he had given them laws to 
follow out in the smallest details of their 
lives. But Jesus came to fulfill the dis- 
pensation of the law and to show them the 
way of grace. He started them on a 
new and higher plane. When we com- 
pare the words of Jesus as he stood on the 
mountain side that day with the laws 
which came down from Sinai, we see 
what Jesus meant by the fulfilling of the 
law.” 


Old Testament: Refrain from work on the Sabbath. 
Jesus: Do good on the Sabbath. 

Old Testament: Thou shalt not kill. 

Jesus: Do not treat a brother with contempt. 

Old Testament: Ferform unto the Lord thine oaths. 
Jesus: Swear not at all. 


12Exodus xx. 8-10; Matthew v. 21-44; Matthew xii. 10--13. 


31 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Old Testament: Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

Jesus: Think only pure thoughts. 

Old Testament: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. 
Jesus: Turn the other cheek. 

Old Testament: Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 
Jesus: Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you. 


Jesus was revising here; but he was 
going up the scale, not down. His at- 
titude to all Old Testament law is revealed 
here as he breaks the shackles of legalism. 
He showed how Christians go beyond law 
into grace, and how it is never a lesser 
but always a greater obligation. And for 
what purpose? Jesus closes with, ‘“That 
you may be the children of your Father.”’ 
He took the empty forms of law and went 
beyond them, literally filled them full 
until they ran over into something bigger 
and finer than people had dreamed pos- 
sible. He showed them the better way of 
a child’s glad obedience to and cooperation 
with its Father. 

The Old Testament had said: “The 
tithe is the ‘Lord's. Jesusisaid: =ifou 
are children of the Father.’’s Will the 





13Matthew v. 45. 


32 


Stewardship versus Legalism 


child take affairs into his own hands and 
dole out to his Father an unwilling tenth, 
or will he rejoice in the privilege of 
partnership that together they may devote 
property to the highest use? 





QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND STUDY 
CHAPTER I. STEWARDSHIP VERSUS LEGALISM 


Purpose: To show how Jesus went beyond law into grace, and 
how this larger privilege which his followers enjoy implies also a 
larger responsibility. 

1. What arguments are commonly used to convince people that 
they should tithe? Which of these are based on worthy motives? 

2. Why have not our tithing campaigns been more successtul? 
“Tf legalistic tithing gets the money, why should we not be satis- 
fied with that? 

3. Which is a greater cause for rejoicing, a young man who 
earns twenty dollars a week who begins tithing from a real sense 
of stewardship or a wealthy banker who begins tithing from a 
purely legalistic motive? Does God care more for the man or for 
his money? 

4. Is it better to tithe from a legalistic motive than not to tithe 
at all? Why do you think so? How many people have you 
known for whom tithing was the first step toward stewardship? 

5- On the other hand, what are some of the dangers of legalistic 
tithing? In what spiritual condition did Jesus find the Pharisees 
of his day? What was Jesus’ attitude toward legalism and the 
observance of the letter of the law? 

6. What did Jesus mean by saying that he came not to destroy 
the law, but to fulfill it? 


33 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


7. Compare the Old Testament law with Jesus’ teaching in the 
Sermon on the Mount. Which entails the greater obligation? 
Why should a Christian ‘‘under grace’’ do more than a Jew 
*‘under law’’? 

8. In which service should one find greater joy, in obeying a 
law or in pleasing a Father? 

9. Does your love for and gratitude to the Father cause you to 
wish to go “‘the second mile’’—that is, beyond tithing into 
stewardship? 

to. Is there ever a ptivilege which does not carry with tt an 
obligation? Do you count it a privilege to be a child of the 
Father and under grace rather than under the law? Do you teel 
that this puts upon you any obligation? How can such an ob- 
ligation be met? 

11. Will you make of tithing a pertunctory or unwilling obedi- 
ence to a law, or will you count it a part of your priceless privilege 
of partnership with the Father? 


34 


CHAPTER IT 


Jesus’ CONCEPTION OF STEWARDSHIP 


**He broke the ice on the streamlet’s brink, 
And gave the leper to eat and drink, 
*Twas a moldy crust of coarse brown bread, 
"Twas water out of a wooden bowl— 
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 
And *twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul." 


© «To, it is I, be not afraid! 
In many climes, without avail, 
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; 
Behold, it is here—this cup which thou 
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now; 
This crust is my body broken for thee, 
This water His blood that died on the tree; 
The Holy Supper is kept indeed 
In whatso we share with another’s need; 
Not what we give, but what we share, 
For the gift without the giver is bare; 
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three-— 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me.’” 

—Lowell, ‘The Vision of Sir Launfal.” 


CHAPTER II 
JESUS’ CONCEPTION OF STEWARDSHIP 


‘*From lust of gain or greed for gold, 
Keep me with high and holy mien, 
But if the ships of fortune bring 
Some precious cargo, clear and clean, 
Safeguard me in my stewardship 
By glimpses of thy great unseen. 


From lust of place or pomp of power 
Save me with pure and passionate pride, 
Curb not the hunger of my soul, 
But keep ambition sanctified. 
Safeguard thy steward, Lord, each day 
By vision of the higher way."’ 
—Ralph S. Cushman. 


UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF STEWARDSHIP 


On what do we base our conviction that 
Jesus taught stewardship? Before that 
question can be answered we must go back 
to the beginnings of the idea of steward- 
ship. When we read the Old Testament 
as the progressive revelation of God’s 
efforts to lead men to an understanding 
of his nature and his purpose for the world, 
we can better understand the teaching of 
Jesus. Even back in the earliest days of 

37 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


the Hebrew people we find the beginnings 
of a conception of stewardship—a con- 
ception which God continually reén- 
forced through his revelation to those 
prophets who could forthtell his will to 
the people. 

The first and fundamental principle of 
stewardship lies in God’s ownership of 
all things—the ownership of creation. 
Often Jehovah reminded his people that 
man did not make the gold and the silver 
that lie hidden in the earth, that man 
cannot control the rain and the sun that 
cause the wheat and the corn to grow, that 
man did not and cannot form the iron ore 
from which he makes his implements to 
cultivate the soil, that man cannot control 
the storms and floods which may wipe out 
the crops on which he depends, and that 
man cannot by his will cause his flocks and 
herds to multiply. “‘The silver is mine 
and the gold is mine,’’! Jehovah told them. 
Again they are reminded that the beasts of 
the field, the fowl of the air, the cattle of 


1; Kings xx. 3. 


38 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


a thousand hills are his,? his by right of 
creation. But man was prone to forget and 
to feel that property, or at least the fruit- 
age, was his own because he held it in his 
possession and because he planted and 
gathered. So Jehovah warned: ‘‘Lest thou 
say in thine heart, My power and the 
might of my hand hath gotten me this 
wealth, thou shalt remember the Lord thy 
God, for it is he that giveth thee power to 
get wealth.’ 

In that majestic voice which spoke to 
Job out of the storm! he was reminded of 
his own inability to produce or even ex- 
plain these things which are God’s by the 
right of creation: ‘‘Where were you when 
the foundations of the earth were laid, 
and the morning stars sang together? 
Who shut up the sea, saying, Hence shall 
thy proud waves come no further? Have 
you learned the secrets of death or how to 
bring forth day and night? Can you pro- 
duce the snow and hail, or bring forth the 


2Psalm 1. 10. 8Deuteronomy viii. 17, 18. 
4Job xxxviii. 


39 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


tain, or cause the herbs to spring up and 
the buds to burst forth? Did you teach 
the birds to fly, did you make the wild 
beasts of the forest? Can you tame the 
monsters of the sea?’ And Job, who, al- 
though he was a generous man, had count- 
ed his fields, his flocks and his herds, his 
sons and daughers as his own and had 
blamed God for taking them away, recog- 
nized the ownership of one whose wisdom 
and power left him awed and humbled. 
Life was simple in those early days. 
There were no such things as buildings 
and rents, stocks and bonds, mortgages and 
salaries. Property was not complicated. 
There were fewer ways to abuse it and 
perhaps fewer ways to make it serve God. 
Yet even then it was easy for man to forget 
that he was not its real owner. Jehovah 
sought to keep his people in remembrance 
of his ownership by establishing the tithe 
which was to be man’s acknowledgment 
that all he had was held in trust for anoth- 
er. This was no institution set up because 
of Jehovah’s need. The meaning lay 
40 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


deeper. Man was prone to confuse 
possession and ownership, prone to forget 
that property was in the hands of another 
before hecameintothe world. He failed to 
realize that it would be in the hands of an- 
other after he had gone from the world, and 
that the time which he would be allowed 
to live to possess it was also in the hands 
of Jehovah. As a reminder of all this he 
was to give Jehovah a tithe of all his 
increase, and it was to be the first fruits. 
This was a school in which man was 
taught to give God first place, in which 
man was reminded from whence he came 
and whither he went, the spiritual recall, 
the call away from the sordidness of 
material things. Often the people forgot 
Jehovah altogether, often they went after 
strange gods, and as often they were called 
back. A part of the new consecration 
was to bring in the tithes, and always 
this recognition of Jehovah’s ownership 
brought anew a blessing. 

We come to the days of Amos to find a 
new note in this teaching about property. 


AI 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Life had become more complicated. Men 
were living in cities. No longer were 
lands free where men might find pasture 
for their flocks and herds. No longer were 
all the poor provided for. We find that 
the rich lived in luxury, and that they 
were merciless in their oppression of the 
poor—‘‘sold the poor for a pair of shoes.’’s 
Amos spoke a new note. He said 
that giving was not enough. Tithes 
and offerings could not atone for 
their selfish and wicked living. Money 
must be righteously earned before its pos- 
sessor could find approval in the sight of 
Jehovah. Otherwise, he told them, their 
songs, their lip worship, their tithes and 
offerings were an abomination to God. 
These gifts were not a recognition of 
ownership, but a hypocritical peace offer- 
ing which was made in the hope that 
because of it Jehovah would overlook 
their misuse of property, their oppression 
of the poor and needy. 

Again it was Malachi who denounced the 

6Amos ii. 6. 


42. 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


people for their perfunctory and unwilling 
service. ‘Do you think the Lord is pleased 
with you when you give him only the 
things which you do not want? the 
animals that have been torn by beasts 
ot those that are sick and lame? And how 
did you get that money? Did you not op- 
press the hireling in his wages, likewise 
the widow and the fatherless, and have 
you not cheated strangers whenever you 
could? Yes, and these blemished offerings 
you have brought have not been in a right 
spirit. You have said: ‘Behold what a 
weariness it is!’ How can you expect to 
be blessed and happy and prosperous when 
you disobey the Lord and rob him in the 
tithes and offerings? You pretend to 
give, while your gifts are only the things 
you do not want for yourselves.’’¢ 


Jesus’ INTERPRETATION OF STEWARDSHIP 


We come to the days of Jesus to find the 
messages of Amos and Malachi long un- 


6Malachi i. 12-14, iii. 7-18. 


43 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


heeded. The Pharisees kept the letter of 
the law of the tithe, though its spiritual 
meaning had long since fled. The idea of 
stewardship had faded; only the letter of 
the law remained. There was no realiza- 
tion of God’s ownership of either property 
or persons—only a rigid law which said 
that the tiniest garden herbs must be tithed, 
that never a mint stalk might be taken from 
one’s garden except as the count was kept, 
for the tenth stalk belonged to God!7 Rob 
a widow, turn an orphan into the street, 
let your own father and mother starve, 
but do not use one of God’s mint stalks for 
yourself! | 

Jesus set about to bring men again to a 
sense of stewardship, to lift them from an 
act to an attitude, to motivate a system 
which had become utterly devoid of 
spiritual meaning. He was not concerned 
about the form it should take; he was not 
concerned with machinery or laws; he 
wanted a spirit which would set men’s 
hearts right, for he knew that a right at- 





TLuke xi. 42. 


44 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


titude would find expression in right 
living. 

As we may expect him to do, Jesus not 
only went beyond the tithing law, but he 
gave a new meaning to the old conception 
of stewardship. He was familiar with its 
accepted meaning. More than one of his 
parables dealt with the relation of the 
Master and the steward. But Jesus ideal- 
ized the relationship when he taught that 
God is more than owner—he is Father— 
and thus stewardship is raised to the 
dignity of partnership. Of the household 
of his Father, he no longer called those 
who followed him servants, but friends.® 
Stewardship was taking on new meaning. 
Jesus was familiar with its form, but how 
he glorified it! God’s ownership? Surely, 
but more—children of the Father! He 
believed so strongly in this fatherhood of 
God and his good purpose for the world 
that he staked his life on it. It brought 
forth the prayer in the garden: Thy will be 
done, even though it mean my life and the 


8John xv. 15, 


45 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


shame of the cross.2 Not only material 
things, but life itself was held in trust for 
the Father, and at any cost it was to be 
used for the purpose of God. 

Jesus’ attitude is often shown by his 
assumptions, the things he mentioned 
casually or took for granted. He recog- 
nized the part that God and society played 
in making values—and such recognition 
on our part is involved in our stewardship. 
‘Your Father knows what you have need 
of,’’ he told the little band of followers. 
“‘He clothes the lily in its gorgeous colors, 
and cares for the tiniest sparrow. Can you 
not trust him to providefor you?’ Hetold 
them the story of the man who planted 
his field, and as he slept and waked the 
grain sprang up and grew, he knew not 
how.” But God was working for him 
while he slept. Jesus recognized the part 
society played in creating values even in 
his day. Often his stories were of the 


9Matthew xxvi. 36-39. 10Mark iv. 26-29. 


A6 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


men who bought and sold:" of one who 
sold all his possessions that he might ob- 
tain a pearl of great price, of those who 
put money out at interest, and of a capital- 
ist who went on a long journey, leaving 
his affairs in the hands of others. 

If society helped to make values in 
Jesus’ day, then how much more does it 
enter in to-day. Of what value would the 
Woolworth building be on the plains of 
North China? Of what good were stocks 
and bonds in the jungles of Africa? Of 
what worth a bag of gold on a desert 
island? Of what the value of an oil well or 
a diamond mine, if there be no people to 
want, no one to buy and sell? What makes 
_a foot of ground in New York city worth 
more than sixty acres on the plains of West 
Texas? There can be no property without 
God, its Creator, and property can have 
no value apart from society, for 


‘Back of the loaf is the snowy flour, 
And back of the flour the mill, 

And back of the mill are the wheat and the shower, 
And the sun and the Father’s will.” 





11Matthew xiii. 44-46. 


47 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Jesus recognized that a steward’s first 
duty was to use property for the highest 
interest of the owner.2 What is God’s 
highest interest, and how can our property 
be used for him? Jesus makes it plain that 
God is not interested in wealth for 
wealth’s sake. His highest interest is in 
human personality. According to Jesus, 
the commandment which comes next to 
love for God is that of love for one’s 
neighbor. Not a sparrow falls without 
your Father’s knowledge, he told his fol- 
lowers, and you are of more value than 
many sparrows. Human personality is so 
valuable that the very hairs of your head 
are numbered. Jesus was thinking here of 
men’s bodies as they are the dwelling 
places of men’s souls. Do not mind those 
who can destroy only the body, he told 
them; it is the character, the soul, that 
counts." 

Regardless of the point of the story of 
the evil spirits which Jesus sent out of the 


LMatthew xxv. 14-30. 13Matthew x. 28-31. 
14Matthew x. 28. 


48 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


poor possessed man into the herd of 
swine,” one thing is clear: Jesus counted a 
poor lunatic of more value than a whole 
herd of pigs. He put persons before prop- 
erty. Doubtless that had something 
to do with the fact that the whole city 
came out and besought him to leave 
at once. 

How many of us would haye joined in 
the protest had we been present that day? 
The farmer who builds for his stock a 
barn that is better than the house he pro- 
vides for his tenants would surely have 
been among the leaders, as would those 
men whose pigs and cows take prizes at 
the fair while the children are kept out 
of school to help gather the crops. The 
men who employ child labor would have 
been the first to demand that he go, as 
would the lazy, shiftless fathers who are 
anxious that their children go to work 
ratherthantoschool. Allthe multitude of 
people who put material things first, who 
bow down to ‘“‘thieving ambition and 


15Mark v. 2-20. 


49 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


paltering gain,’’ who value property before 
personality, would have joined the crowd 
who begged Jesus to depart from their 
coast. 

No wonder they wanted him to leave! 
After he was gone they could have “‘busi- 
ness as usual.’’ While he was there no- 
body knew what valuable property might 
be sacrificed for some other worthless per- 
son. 

Jesus owned no property, yet his whole 
life was lived on the principle that human 
personality was of supreme interest to 
God.s He gave a new meaning to 
stewardship, by dignifying it into 
partnership, into sonship; he joyously 
made his Father’s highest interest his own. 
‘‘T am come that they may have life, and 
that abundantly,” hesaid. And his ‘‘they’’ 
included all men. His purpose was to 
preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the 
broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to 
the captive, the recovering of sight to the 
blind, to set at liberty them that were 


16Matthew xx. 26-28; John x. 10, 11. 


50 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


bruised.” From the beginning of his 
ministry down to the cross, his life was a 
glorious example of stewardship. He made 
God’s interest hisown. He gave his life for 
human personality because that was the 
primary interest of his Partner and Father, 


God. 


Movpern STEWARDSHIP 


The practice of stewardship, like prop- 
erty, is far more complicated to-day than 
it was in the time of Jesus. But while 
conditions and outward circumstances 
change, spiritual laws remain the same. 
Principles are unchanged, though out- 
ward applications must vary to meet the 
needs of each generation. It is a part of 
our stewardship to take the principles 
which Jesus laid down and apply them to 
the complexities of modern life. 

Stewardship to-day demands more of a 
man than that he make his money honest- 
ly, and spend it honestly, or even generous- 
ly. Ina very real sense we are our broth- 


MLuke iv. 18. 
5r 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


ets’ keepers, and we cannot be said to have 
found the mind of Christ until we have his 
attitude toward the economic problems of 
the day. We cannot say that unemploy- 
ment, long hours, child labor, underpaid 
workmen, or graft in public funds are 
none of our affair since we are not directly 
responsible for these things. Generosity 
on our part cannot fulfill our obligation if 
we do nothing to alter such conditions. 
Jesus came to bring the joyous, abun- 
dant life to all men, the life that God wants 
each one to have. And ‘‘all men’”’ includes 
the miner who was suffocated in that ex- 
plosion last week, and it includes that 
miner’s family. It reaches out to that 
girl who waited on you in the shop to-day, 
whose pay is so small that day by day she 
is finding it harder to withstand the battle 
with poverty, and hunger, and loneliness, 
when plenty and gayety and beautiful 
clothes are offered her for the price of her 
virtue. It encircles that negro cabin yon- 
der in “‘Black Bottom’’ near the dump pile 
where disease germs breed and family life 
5P 


| Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


can be neither wholesome nor safe. It 
reaches out to that factory across the way, 
where a tired mother bends over a machine 
in a poorly lighted room until she faints 
from fatigue and is injured in the un- 
guarded machinery. It reaches out to 
those beet fields, to those oyster-packing 
rooms, to that mill where little children 
labor, children whose baby fingers pack 
our food, make the flowers for our hats, 
and sew buttons on our garments long 
past the time when their eyelids are heavy 
with sleep—little children of whom the 
poet was thinking as he wrote, 


“The golf links lie so near the mill 
That almost every day 
The laboring children can look out 
And see the men at play’”’"— 


children of whom the Master said, ‘“Their 
angels do always behold the face of my 
Father’’;8 and of him who offended one 
“It were better that a millstone be put 
around his neck and he be cast into the 


sea.’719 
Even more, ‘‘all men’’ reaches across the 


WMatthew xviii. 10. Luke xvii. 2, 


53 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


water until all the poor and downtrodden 
and suffering of the world are included in 
the circle of the joy-filled and abundant 
life. Stewardship demands that we do all 
in our power to give othersachance. This 
means more than the relief of suffering. It 
means doing our part to make it possible 
for people to work out the best in their 
own lives. This is everybody's world, and 
it was Jesus’ ideal that everybody might 
have a chance. We do not want to get so 
lost in the contemplation of the ideal of a 
Christian social order that we forget the 
task at our own doors or the Christian 
administration of our own earnings. Yet 
we do need to see that, while we are in 
danger of giving too much thought to 
things in our own lives because of a false 
sense of values, all over the world 
there are those who of necessity see 


‘All life moving to one measure— 
Daily bread, daily bread— 
Bread of life and bread of labor, 
Bread of bitterness and sorrow, 
Hand to mouth and no to-morrow.""20 


20Wilfred Gibson, ‘‘Collected Poems.” 
54 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


People whose stunted bodies and dulled 
minds are ever harassed over the problem 
of a bare existence have no chance for the 
abundant life. They have no chance 
really to live. As Wordsworth sees it, 


**The poorest poor 
Long for some moment in a weary life 
When they can know and feel that they have been 
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers out 
Of some small blessing; and been kind to such 
As needed kindness, for this single cause 
That we have all of us one human heart.” 

“It is a sad commentary on our religion 
that nearly two millenniums after the 
coming of One who placed foremost the 
preaching of ‘good news to the poor’ and 
made ministry to the needs of this present 
life the basis of final judgment we should 
still be without a common Christian con- 
sciousness that poverty is conquerable and 
preventable. We have too long regarded 
poverty as an individual incident, to be 
borne with fortitude as a Christian dis- 
cipline or, in extreme cases, to be relieved 
by charity. There are still those who 
charge all the ill fortune of present-day 


55 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


farmers and slum dwellers alike to extrav- 
agance, inefficiency, or laziness. ‘If they 
had been as hard working and saving as [’ 
is all too frequently the verbal way of 
escape from all sense of social responsibil- 
ity. 

‘“But somewhere between 85 and 90 per 
cent of our poverty is due to social rather 
than to individual causes. In the army of 
more than ten million who have for years 
past lived in poverty in the midst of plenty 
in our own land there are millions who 
never had a fair chance to acquire effi- 
ciency; they were born in slums of under- 
nourished parents; they grew up in vitality- 
lowering surroundings, with inadequate 
food for body, mind, or soul; they early 
joined the ranks of child labor and forth- 
with were graduated to the army of pe- 
riodically unemployed, which a profit- 
greedy industrialism declares necessary 
without regard to human costs.’’ 2! 

To relieve a man’s necessity is not 
enough. He must have a chance to help 


21°*Through the Eyes of Youth.” 


56 


Jesus’ Conception of Stewardship 


himself. This does not mean communism 
or socialism, or dividing up money or 
property. But it does demand that every 
man have a chance to work under decent 
conditions at a living wage, and that 
childhood everywhere have a right to 
health and education and the training 
which fits for lives of usefulness and nor- 
mal, wholesome living. Until we do our 
part in making this possible we have not 
fully taken account of our stewardship. 





QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND STUDY. 
CHAPTER II. JESUS’ CONCEPTION OF STEWARDSHIP 


Purpose: To show that stewardship is am attitude toward 
life which finds expression in the way a man lives and which de- 
termines his habits of earning, saving, spending, and giving. 

1. What is stewardship? What is the difference in tithing and 
stewardship? May one tithe from a variety of motives and yet 
not be a Christian steward? Can one be a Christian steward and 
give less than a tenth? Can you call the Pharisees Christian 
stewards? Why not? 

2. Which is the bigger thing, tithing or stewardship? Why? 

3. What is a steward? What obligations does he have? What 
would you consider an ideal relationship between an owner and 
a steward? What new meaning did Jesus give-to stewardship? — 

4. In what ways did God seek to teach people to recognize his 


57 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


ownership in Old Testament times? Was the tithe set up because 
God needed money? If not, what was its purpose? 

5. What new teaching about property do we find in Amos and 
Malachi? Why did they say that the tithes and offerings of the 
people were an abomination to Jehovah? 

6. What attitude toward stewardship did Jesus find at the be- 
ginning of his ministry? What did he set about to do? 

7. How did Jesus show that he recognized God's ownership of 
all things? What did he recognize as the first duty of a steward? 
According to Jesus, what is God's highest interest? DoesGod 
care about money except for what it can do for people? 

8. Aside from the fact that we owe a debt to other peopie 
because that is the only way we can give to God, what other 
reason do we have for our obligation to society? 

g. Why is a foot of ground in New York City worth more than 
acres of land on the plains? What would your city’s leading 
store be worth if all the people in the town died or moved 
away? If the value of possessions depends on people, what ob- 
ligation does that impose? 

10. How does the story of the devils which Jesus sent into the 
swine illustrate God's highest interest? Would you have been 
among those who begged Jesus to leave? How do you know that 
you would not? 

11. How could Jesus leave us a perfect example of stewardship 
when he owned no property? 

12. Have the principles of stewardship changed since Jesus’ 
day? To what larger obligation must we apply these principles 
if we are to be faithful stewards to-day? 

13. Does God care as much about a Negro or a Chinese as he 
does about us? What does that have to do with our stewardship? 

14. Why is it not enough to relieve the needy about us? What 
per cent of poverty is due to social causes? How can we help re- 
move these causes? Can we call ourselves good stewards until 
we have done our utmost to make the larger life possible for 
other? 

58 


CHAPTER III 


Jusus’ STANDARDs IN ACQUIRING 


*“O Trade! O Trade! would thou wert dead! 
The Time needs heart—’ tis tired of head. 


‘Each day, all day’ (these poor folks say), 
‘In the same old year-long, drear-long way, 
We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns, 
We sieve mine-meshes under the hills, 
And thieve with the gold from the Devil's bank tills, 
To relieve, O God, what manner of ills?-— 
The beasts, they hunger, and eat, and die; 
And so do we, and the world’s a sty; 
Hush, fellow swine: why nuzzle and cry? 
Swinehood hath no remedy, 
Say many men, and hasten by. 
But who said once, in the lordly tone, 
Man shall not live by bread alone, 
But all that cometh from the Throne? 

Hath God said so? 

But Trade saith No: 
And the kilns and the curt-tongued mills say Go: 
There's plenty that can, ef you can’t, we know. 
Move out, if you think you are underpaid. 
The poor are prolific; we're not afraid; 

Trade is Trade.’ 

—Lanier, *‘The Symphony." 


CHAPTER III 
JESUS’ STANDARDS IN ACQUIRING 


“T put the thought away 
For fear ‘of what my friends would say, 
They’d backed me, see? O Lord, the sin 
Done for the things there’s money in!”’ 
—Masefield, ‘The Everlasting Mercy.” . 


DiLIGENCE IN ACQUIRING 


WuHen we think of ourselves as stewards 
intrusted with property or the ability to 
work with property which belongs to 
another, we realize that it is our duty to 
earn all that we can. This, of course, 
does not imply that one should work such 
long hours that he has no time for other 
things, or that he should be so engrossed 
in earning that he loses interest in the 
other affairs of life. He must,.as a stew- 
ard, choose his occupation in regard to 
his fitness for it, and the amount of serv- 
ice which he can render, rather than the 
money consideration involved. Asa stew- 
ard, he must give himself to his family 


and in gratuitous service to his Church 
61 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


and community, for material things are 
not of primary importance. But steward- 
ship implies a diligence in business as 
well. Was this not Jesus’ attitude? 

Jesus put no premium on carelessness, 
Jaziness, or indifference to one’s work. 
He spoke familiarly of the everyday affairs 
of business as it went on about him. He 
told the story of a man’s stewards to each 
of whom was intrusted a sum of money 
while the master went on a journey. He 
recorded the return of the owner of the 
property and of the commendation of those 
stewards who were diligent in trading and 
increasing the sum intrusted to their care. 
But there was severe condemnation for 
the lazy fellow who let his master’s 
money lie idle and who came in whining 
and making excuses for his failure. Jesus 
told of another steward who reinstated 
himself in the good opinion of his master 
because he used wisdom and shrewdness in 
his own affairs, a fact which led Jesus to 





'Luke xix. 12-26. 
62. 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


remark that the children of the world are 
wiser in this respect than the children of 
light.2, Again his story was of the sower 
who went forth to sow his field; and because 
there was good ground and bad, and be- 
cause the sun, and the birds, and the stony 
soil served to affect the variety of his 
yield, some brought forth a hundredfold, 
and some sixty, and some thirty. Jesus 
told of the man who sowed his fields with 
good wheat, but while he slept an enemy 
came and sowed it with tares. However, 
the owner was a wise and successful farmer 
who knew enough to leave the tares until 
the time of the harvest, when they might 
be separated from the wheat without in- 
jury to the crop.‘ Jesus used the story of a 
capitalist who planted a vineyard and 
went abroad, leaving it to the care of 
servants. Again it was of a merchant who 
dealt in pearls, and when he found one of 
great value he sold all that he had to buy 
the one.§ 


2Luke xvi. 1-8. ®Matthew xiii. 18-23. 
*Matthew xili. 24-30. Matthew xxi. 33-41; xiii. 45, 46. 


63 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


All these illustrations the Master drew 
from the life about him, and we see no 
evidence of anything but approval for the 
thrift and industry. They are all stories 
of men who went about their day’s work 
earning an honest livelihood. 

There are many people to-day who, like 
the unfaithful steward, are hiding their 
talents in a napkin and complaining be- 
cause they cannot get ahead. Jesus ever 
approved of the normal life and of the 
reasonable enjoyment of the good things 
which life can offer. 

In a world of to-day the highest culture 
and development cannot come without a 
sufficient income to meet thenormal needs. 
One cannot contribute to the betterment of 
the world and the help of the less fortunate 
unless he has more than enough for a bare 
existence. If property is here for use, a 
man falls short of his stewardship who 
does not make property yield all that it 
can without sacrificing other values. 

Here is a farmer who tills the soil half- 
heartedly, and with inadequate tools and 

64 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


antiquated methods. With system about 
his work, diligence, and alertness in adopt- 
ing new methods, and machinery which 
would increase his efficiency, he could 
double the production of his farm. With 
his present methods his income is such 
that his wife drudges her way into a pre- 
mature old age, and his children grow up 
discontented with the farm and embittered 
because of the little life has to offer. They 
either break away from home altogether, 
or settle down in the neighborhood to re- 
peat their father’s tragedy of a steward 
neither diligent nor faithful in his ac- 
quiring. | 

Here is a girl who teaches school, with 
little interest in her work and no thought 
for the welfare of the children. With 
night study or correspondence courses or 
by reading the best books and journals 
on education she might have filled in- 
creasingly better positions which would 
have allowed her the leisure and funds to 
have continued her preparation and in- 
creased her usefulness and opportunity for 

65 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


service a hundredfold. She has missed 
the meaning of stewardship. 

A young man has started out in business, 
but he disregards the rules of courtesy, is 
indifferent to his customers, careless of 
his accounts, and negligent of his methods. 
His income remains small, financial wor- 
ries harass him, he is forced to rent cheap 
apartments, and his family must do with- 
out many things needed for the comfort 
and welfare of the home. His income does 
not allow for books or music or simple 
pleasures, nor is there money to use in 
helping others. How can he expect Jesus 
to approve the stewardship? 

The stenographer who with study and 
care might be a private secretary, the 
young man who works as a ‘‘soda jerker’’ 
or a petty clerk at twenty dollars a week, 
when by study and diligent application 
he might fill a responsible position, the 
salesgirl who could be head of her depart- 
ment, the bookkeeper who might fill an 
executive position—all of the half-hearted 
workers who complain that they have no 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


chance—ar¢e they not slothful servants 
and without the Master’s approval? 


KEEPING First THINGS First 


But while there are many to-day who 
ate not acquiring as stewards because they 
are too careless or indolent or indifferent 
to use their ability to the utmost, there 
are far too many who become so engrossed 
in acquiring that all other interests are 
crowded out. To them life consists in the 
abundance of things they possess, and 
of them Wordsworth spoke when he said: 

‘The world is too much with us. Late and soon 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; 


Little we see in nature that is ours; 
We give our hearts away, a sordid boon.” 


It is people like these who go on in the 
mad rush of acquiring without ever. stop- 
ping to consider whether the money they 
accumulate and the things it buys are 
worth the worry and the time they spend in 
earning it; whether the values they sacri- 
fice to get it are not worth more than the 
things money can buy; whether the strain 

67 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Moncy 


and weariness of overwork, the giving over 
to work the hours that should be spent with 
family and friends, with music and books 
and the things which feed the soul are 
worth the price; whether the time spent 
in acquiring so much would not be worth 
more if spent in service to one’s Church or 
community or in giving the soul a chance 
to grow. In this materialistic age we are 
liable to lose all sense of values in our 
eagerness to get, to be successful for suc- 
cess’ sake, to lose all sense of our partner- 
ship of acquiring. 

A well-known minister tells of three 
brothers who owned a profitable business 
in a Tennessee city. They were making a 
comfortable living and were considered 
successful business men, though none of 
them was really wealthy. A concern 
which had a selling proposition, but 
neither the capital nor the equipment to 
finance it, offered to sell the brothers a 
controlling interest in the new enterprise 
if they would take it over. They con- 


sidered the matter and agreed that they 
68 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


could easily make a million dollars on the 
‘new venture and could make it fairly and 
honestly. The next day, the man who had 
made the proposition was amazed when 
they turned it down. 

When pressed for the reason the men 
admitted that it would pay. ‘‘But,’’ said 
one of the brothers, ‘“‘we are men of fam- 
ilies and officials in our Church. With our 
present volume of business we can pro- 
vide for our families and do our part to- 
ward the religious, educational, and chari- 
table enterprises. When our day’s work 
is over we can forget our business and 
give our evenings to our families, our 
Church, or our community. If we take 
over such an increased volume of business, 
it means longer hours of work, which 
would leave no time for our children and 
no time for our Church. We have decided 
that these are values which money cannot 
buy. We would be untrue to our steward- 
ship if we made a fortune at the sacrifice 
of our service to our Church and of our 
family life.’ 


69 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


If a man can make a fortune and keep his 
sense of partnership with God in the proc- 
ess, well and good. But what of the man 
who is so busy accumulating money that 
he forgets to live? Most of us need noth- 
ing so much as to stop in this mad rush of 
getting, to simplify our wants, to forget 


awhile 
The fretful stir 
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world’; 
and to pray with earnestness, 
‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind, 


Forgive our feverish ways, 


Take from our souls the strain and stress 
And let out ordered lives confess 
The beauty of thy peace.”’ 


We need to stop in all the busy whirl to be 
still and know that he is God, to feed our 
bodies less and our souls more. No man 
can get the mind of the Master in his ac- 
quiring if he is so busy making money that 
he starves his soul. 


Honest IN ACQUIRING 
While we can know from Jesus’ attitude 
and the things he counted worth while 
7O 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


that he would not approve of the steward- 
ship of a man who became so engrossed 
in acquiring that he let other things be 
crowded out, there is a dishonesty in ac- 
quiring of which the Master expressed 
stern disapproval. In the stories he told 
of diligent but honest stewards we find 
nothing but approval. But there were 
other stories which Jesus told with a dif- 
ferent note in his voice. He saw a Phari- 
see who never missed the observance of a 
single law, who made long prayers, and 
was so careful and strict in his tithing that 
he included the little herbs that grew in 
his kitchen garden. But how did that 
man get hismoney? Whatasting the words 
of Jesus had as he exposed the whole rotten 
business! ‘‘You devour widows’ houses, 
and for a pretense make long prayers.”’ 
There was a man who had not earned by 
honest and diligent business, but by 
cruelty and oppression and unfair advan- 
tage of the weaker and more helpless mem- 
bers of the community. And there was 
condemnation in the Master’s voice. 


Fu 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


There is no stronger language in the New 
Testament than that which Jesus used in 
condemning these professedly religious 
people who were dishonest in their ac- 
quiring.® 

On another occasion, Jesus walked into 
the temple, and instead of reverence and 
prayer he found the money changers quar- 
reling and taking shrewd advantage of 
the worshipers. There were the tables 
of those who sold doves, and he found 
them calling their wares and selling at 
profiteer’s prices. Changing the money 
and selling the doves was a necessary 
and legitimate business. Many of the 
people came long distances and could 
not bring with them the animals for 
the sacrifice; others came from provinces 
where a different currency was used, 
and they too needed assistance. Jesus’ 
indignation waxed hot as he saw these 
men, who should have been helping to 
furnish things necessary for worship, tak- 
ing shrewd advantage of the people’s ne- 





6Matthew xxiii. 14-23. 


72 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


cessity, profiteering, making of the temple 
a house of merchandise and a den of thieves.’ 
No carefulness in tithing on the part of 
these men could have wiped out the dis- 
honesty of their acquiring. Had they 
tried to cover their sin in this way, we 
should expect to hear repeated the mes- 
sage of Amos: “‘I hate, I despise your feast 
days, and I will not smell in your solemn 
assemblies. Though you offer me burnt 
offerings and your meat offerings, I will 
not accept them; neither will I regard the 
peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take 
away from me the noise of thy songs; for 
I will not hear the melody of the viols. 
But let judgment run down as waters, and 
righteousness as a mighty stream.’’s 
Jesus gave us the example of one man 
who caine to himself and accepted in his 
own life the full meaning of stewardship. 
Jesus saw a man of small stature who had 
climbed into a tree to see the Master go by. 
He called to him to come down, and at the 
call the man recognized that all his pre- 


TMark xi. 15-17. 8Amos v. 21-24. 
73 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


vious life he had violated the things for 
which Jesus stood. Here was a teacher 
who proclaimed justice and honesty and 
fairness to one’s fellow man, and to Zac- 
cheus there came the burning memory of 
those crooked deals he had put over, that 
worthless stuff he had sold, that widow 
whom he had tricked in a trade. 

No amount of tithing or giving would 
have set Zaccheus right. Hehad not been 
acquiring as a steward, and he met Jesus 
with the statement: “‘Behold, I give half 
of my goods, . . . and where! have gotten 
from men dishonestly, I restore fourfold!’’ 
And Jesus, recognizing that the man had 
a vision of partnership with God in his 
purpose for the world, proclaimed: ‘“To- 
day has salvation come to this house.’’» 


AcquirinG To-Day 
Can Jesus approve our acquiring to-day? 
He called the Pharisees hypocrites because 
they tithed and carefully observed reli- 
gious forms while they devoured widows’ 


9Luke xix. 1-10. 


74 


Jesus Standards in Acquiring 


houses in acquiring their money. How 
many men to-day are as truly devouring 
widows’ houses when they charge exor- 
bitant rents or pay women such low wages 
that a decent standard of living is im- 
possible? How many factories make prof- 
its at the expense of child labor, underpaid 
girls, or improperly lighted, heated, or 
ventilated rooms, or with dangerous ma- 
chinery or an undue fire hazard? There 
are many ways to ‘“‘devour widows’ 
houses,’’ and according to Jesus no amount 
of long prayers or of scrupulous tithing 
or gifts to charity will seta man right who 
does it. 

Here is the owner of a big department 
store which is model in all of its appoint- 
ments. It boasts of a rest room for its 
gitls. But somewhere to-night is more 
than one girl who went down under the 
strain of trying to exist on the less than 
living wage which that store paid her. 
She finally grew weary of the struggle and 
taking the advice of the other girls she 
sold her body and soul for bread. 

75 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Yonder is a prominent layman who has 
just made a large contribution to the 
Church. But down on a dark street the 
inmates of a house of shame ply their 
trade through the night hours, because 
the police cannot close a house that is 
owned and knowingly rented for immoral 
purposes by a layman who is also a 
prominent and influential lawyer of the 
city. 

The mayor of the town is a deacon in the 
Church and noted for his liberality, but the 
illicit liquor trade goes on because his 
position is dependent on influential men 
who do not want the liquor traffic stopped. 

Yonder is a man who supports a mis- 
sionary in Africa and who professes great 
interest in the Dark Continent. But down 
in Black Bottom in one of his Negro cabins 
from which he draws a part of his income, 
a little form is laid out, the victim of ty- 
phoid epidemic which the insanitary con- 
ditions of the houses made inevitable. 
And in another cabin an old black mammy 
mourns the shame of her wayward daugh- 

76 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


ter—but what could she expect when the 
house she rents from that rich layman 
makes no provision for privacy or decency 
or modesty for its occupants? 

And here is the mill owner who adver- 
tises far and wide the recreation center 
which he provides for his workers, but 
he does not mention the fact that his 
wages are so low and his hours so long 
that tired mothers and weary, play-starved 
children must help eke out the family 
income, and that the long day leaves all 
of them too exhausted to know or care 
if there be a recreation center. 

And here is the lawyer who took ad- 
vantage of a technicality to foreclose the 
mortgage for his client with a fat prof- 
it for himself, though it meant that a 
widow and her children were turned into 
the street. 

Yet men like these claim to be followers 
of the Christ who came that all men might 
have the abundant life, who taught 
that property was to be used for persons, 
never persons for property, who showed 

vs 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


stewardship as partnership with the 
Father! 


Tue Motive In AcQuiIRING 


Jesus’ standard demands that men put 
business on a service rather than a profit 
basis. When one has God as his partner 
and remembers God’s primary interest in 
this world, how can it be otherwise? 
What is your motive in acquiring? Is it 
ease, pleasure, greed of gold, or the place 
and power that comes with riches, or is it 
the highest realization of self and the 
largest service to the world? 

Whether we will or not, God furnishes 
the capital for our business. Whether we 
choose to recognize it or not, society 
makes values, and without society ma- 
chinery would lie idle, goods unsold, dol- 
lars unearned, unvalued, unspent. He 
who laid the ore in the earth before the 
beginning of time; he who sends the rain 
and sun to grow our crops, in whose hands 
lies the breath of our lives, has aright toa 
voice in our acquiring. Society, without 

78 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


which our money would be valueless, has 
a right to be served fairly. Where is he 
who, like the rich fool, dares to lay by his 
stores, building barns yet greater and great- 
er, with no thought of God or his fellow 
men without whom not one of his grain 
sacks could be filled? 

Some of the far-seeing men of to-day 
are beginning to get the vision of this 
ideal of business for service rather than for 
profits, and their vision is surely in keep- 
ing with Jesus’ ideal. Whatever may be 
said of his giving, Henry Ford caught the 
meaning of partnership in acquiring when 
he found certain types of work in his 
plant which can be done by blind men, 
others that can be done by cripples, and 
still others which are open to tubercular 
people where they may earn without 
lessening their chance at recovery. An 
account of a prominent man of the business 
world who recently died in Atlanta spoke 
of the man’s stewardship of acquiring. In 
the after-the-war slump, he refused to turn 
off men he no longer needed because he 

79 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


counted the making of men more impor- 
tant than the making of money. He pre- 
ferred to have his profits cut rather than 
to throw honest men out of work. Raus- 
chenbusch sees this implication in Jesus’ 
story of the men who were employed at 
the eleventh hour by the owner of the 
vineyard and who were paid the same as 
those who worked all day, because they 
had not been responsible for their unem- 
ployment.” 

When men reach the stage where bersons 
are counted of more value than property 
they will have found the mind of the Mas- 
ter, who willed the abundant life for all 
men. It will not be easy for men to see this. 
Too many have had ‘‘the-world-owes-me-a- 
living idea.’’ Few have reached the place 
where they can say with Matthew Arnold: 
‘The longer I live, themoreI see that I have 
norightsatall, only duties.’’ Weclaimto 
follow the Master, yet we spend our lives 
for gain while he spent his for service. 
‘‘Whosoever will be great among you,”’ 


l0Matthew xx. 1-16. 
80 


Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


said Jesus, ‘‘let him be your servant.’ 


With us it is, ““Whosoever will be great 
among you, let him amass a fortune.’ 
How are we to take account of our stew- 
ardship when we so miss the mind of the 
Master? Do we not need the words of the 
old hymn, 


“Lord, help us this and every day, 
To live more nearly as we pray’’? 


What is your motive in acquiring? Is it 
profits or service? How much do you want, 
and how badly do you want it, and what 
do you want it for? Do you want enough 
for comfort, or do you covet riches? Do 
you want it only if you can earn it honest- 
ly, or do you want it so much that you 
will swerve from the right, crush the poor, 
ot deal dishonestly to get it? Do you 
want it selfishly for yourself and your 
family, or do you want money that you 
may server 

‘Labor not for the bread that perish- 
eth,’’ said Jesus; “‘and if you would be 


UMatthew xx. 26 


81 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


great, be as one who serves.’” Will you 
meet the Master’s test in your acquiring, 
or must you answer as did those who 
listened to his high principles in the days 
of his flesh: ‘Truly, this is a hard saying. 
Who can hear it?’’ 





QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND STUDY 
CHAPTER III. JESUS’ STANDARDS IN ACQUIRING 


Purpose: To show that Jesus’ standards demand that a man 
acquire as a steward, by diligence, by honesty and fairness to others, 
and by leaving time for spiritual values in his life. 

1. What reason have you for thinking that Jesus wants a man 
to earn all he can, so long as he earns it honestly and with due 
regard to spiritual values? Which of his parables illustrate this 
point? 

2. Why is it necessary to have more than enough for bare 
necessities if we are to live a full, rich life? Can a half-hearted 
farmer be a good steward, even though he give liberally? Can 
a man be said to acquire as a steward when he makes only half 
as much as he could make? 

3. Can a man be too diligent in acquiring? What are some of 
the things which should never be crowded out of one’s life? Is 
a man ever justified in neglecting his children to make money? 
How much would he value the money if his boy turned out to be 
a criminal? 

4. Do you think Jesus would approve of a man’s getting rich? 
Under what conditions, and why? 

5- What did Jesus have to say about dishonesty in acquiring? 


82. 





Jesus’ Standards in Acquiring 


What prompted the severest language Jesus ever used? What are 
some of the ways in which a man may ‘‘devour widows’ houses”’ 
to-day? 

6. What had Zaccheus been doing to make him know that no 
amount of giving on his part would fulfill his stewardship? What 
did he do to make it right? 

7. Can a man be a good steward and underpay his workmen? 
Can he be a good steward and employ child labor? Charge too 
much rent? Profiteer? What principle of stewardship does a 
man violate when he does these things? 

8. Can a man acquire as a steward when he puts his business on 
a profit rather than a service basis? What do you mean by a serv- 
ice basis? 

9. Do you know of any big business men who have tried putting 
business on a service basis? Did they prosper? 

10. Did Jesus ever count property of more value than persons? 

11. Does the world owe you a living, or do you owea debt to 
the world? Why? 

12. How did Jesus’ standard of greatness compare with our 
commonly accepted standards? What three things are required 
of us if we would acquite according to Jesus’ standard? 


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CHAPTER IV 


ADMINISTERING AS A CHRISTIAN 


Said Christ our Lord: ‘‘I will go and see 
How men, my brethren, believe in me.” 


With carpets of gold the ground they spread 
Wherever the Son of Man should tread. 
Great organs surged through the arches dim 
Their jubilant floods in praise of Him. 

But still, wherever his steps they led, 

The Lord in sorrow bent down his head. 

“Have ye founded your thrones and altars then, 
On the bodies and souls of living men? 

And think ye that building shall endure, 

Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?’’ 
Then Christ sought out an artisan, 

A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, 

And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin 
Pushed from her faintly want and sin. 


These set he in the midst of them, 

And as they drew back their garment-hem, 
For fear of defilement, ‘‘Lo, here,’’ said he, 
**The images ye have made of me!” 


—Lowell, ‘‘A Parable.” 


CHAPTER IV 
ADMINISTERING AS A CHRISTIAN 


**When we count our gold at the end of the day 
And have filtered the dross th.t has cumbered the way; 
O, what were the hold of our treasury then 
Save the love we have shown to the children of men?”’ 
—George Douglas Johnson. 


Tue Nreps oF THE NorMAL LIFE 


Ons of the dangerous points of legalistic 
tithing was that it led men to think that 
so long as they set aside a tenth as God’s 
part they had no obligation to fulfill in 
regard to the other nine-tenths. But when 
we get the real conception of stewardship 
we see that this is no more Christian than 
a man who would be very religious on 
Sunday and do as he pleased the rest of 
the week. When we see stewardship as 
partnership with God in his purpose for 
the world, we realize that all our income 
must be administered in keeping with the 
highest interest of our Partner. When we 
remember that society plays so large a 
part in the acquiring of our property or 

87 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


possessions, we must recognize that so- 
ciety has a right to fair treatment in our 
administering. We recognize that a man 
must provide food and clothing and shelter 
for himself and his family; he must educate 
his children; he must set something aside 
for recreation and for books and music and 
other cultural values; he must lay by some- 
thing for his old age, or to care for his 
family in case of his death; he must fulfill 
his obligation to his Church and to his 
government; he must support community 
and civic enterprises, and if he is in busi- 
ness he must provide for a reasonable 
amount of capital. How are we to divide 
our incomes among the needs so as best 
to fulfill our obligation and privilege as 
Christian stewards? 

The needs of the normal life were recog- 
nized by Jesus, and we find much to indicate 
that he expected us to meet these needs. 
It is true that he called some of his fol- 
lowers to give up their regular occupations 
and to forsake houses and lands and family, 
but to most people he pointed the way toa 


SS ee —— 


Administering as a Christian 


normal life. We believe that Jesus would 
have approved the effort of every man to 
provide those things necessary for the nor- 
mal balanced life and the highest all-round 
development of the individual and the 
family. One of the last things which 
Jesus did, even in the midst of the agony 
of the cross, was to make provision for the 
care of his own mother.’ We find no 
grounds for the medieval conception of the 
crucifixion of the body through undue 
fasting and torture or vows of poverty. 
There is reason to believe that Jesus re- 
ferred to daily bread for the body as well 
as the soul when he taught his disciples 
how to pray.2. We find him feeding the 
five thousand and again the four thousand 
because he had compassion on the multi- 
tude of tired and hungry followers. 

Social life or recreation seems to have its 
place in Jesus’ own life, for we find him a 
guest at the marriage of Cana, where he 
provided the wine that his host might not 
“Wohnxix.2527, = =—~*~*«S Matthew gt. 

SJohn vi. 5-73; Matthew xv. 32-38. 
89 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


be embarrassed,‘ and again we read of his 
attending an elaborate feast in the house 
of Levi.s We can easily judge that Jesus 
would give place to art and music and 
flowers and the other good things which 
help to make our surroundings beautiful 
and pleasant. His Father, who made so 
much beauty, could not call it evil. Jesus 
speaks with appreciation of the gorgeous 
colors of the lily, and he saw nothing 
either wasteful or extravagant in the 
precious ointment with which Mary ex- 
pressed her love, though the prosaic and 
materialistic crowd would have put it to 
what they termed a more practical use.® 
It would seem that Jesus could understand 
the man who said that if he had two 
loaves of bread he would sell one to buy a 
hyacinth to feed hissoul. Arid perhaps the 
Master could understand that group of 
working girls who carried banners demand- 
ing bread and roses when their wage scale 
had been made out by men who lived in lux- 
ury themselves, but who had put the wages 


4John ii. 1-10. SMark v. 29-34. ®Mark xiv. 3-9. 
90 


Administering as a Christian 


of the girls at the lowest point which 
would allow for only the barest necessities 
of the barest existence. 

Reasonable provision for the future 
seems in keeping with Jesus’ attitude. 
He speaks of the prepared virgins as wise 
and those who failed to make provision 
as foolish.? He recognized the claims of 
the government when he told his ques- 
tioners to render unto Czsar the things 
which were Czsar’s and when he sent 
Peter after the fish with which to pay 
tribute money for both of them.8 Jesus 
would certainly have approved a man’s 
support of his Church and the provision 
of church buildings and equipment which 
would do his Father honor. He went to 
the synagogue daily, and he drove from 
the temple those who did not have proper 
regard and respect for his Father’s house.® 


Wuart Jesus CouNTED ImporTANT 


All material needs have their places, and 
yet there are other values which Jesus 


TMatthew xxv. 1-12., *Matthew xxii. 17-21; xvii. 24-27. 
John ii. 13-17. 
or 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


counted important. Wecan conceive of a 
man who would meet all the needs of his 
family and his government, and who would 
be generous in the upkeep of the local needs 
of his own Church and yet who would fall 
far short of administering his posses- 
sions so as to meet with the Master's ap- 
proval. It is all too true that there are 


many 
**Who live a life of virtuous decency, 
Men who can hear the decalogue and feel 
No self-reproach, who of the moral law 
Established in the land where they abide 
Are strict observers; and not negligent 
In acts of love to those with whom they dwell,” 


yet who give no thought to the adminis- 
tration of their possessions as partners 
with God. Asa partner with God, a man 
must stop to ask himself what God counts 
important and how property may best 
serve the interests of God. It will not be 
enough that he pay the preacher and help 
build the Church and keep up its running 
expenses. This, it is true, is a part of the 
duty of every man, just as it is his duty 
to support the schools and help build good 
92. 


Administering as a Christian 


roads. But itis by no means all. Whata 
man gives to the upkeep of the Church in 
his own community is an investment on 
which he receives a large return. 
Whether he gnes to Church or not, he 
would not live in a community where 
there was no Church. He would not 
think of letting his children grow up 
without coming under its influence. Re- 
gatdless of his opinion of the minister, 
he wants one to marry him, and his pastor 
is the first man called when death comes. 
He may not stop to think about it, but he 
knows that, if it were not for the Church’s 
reminding man of God and justice and 
truth and righteousness, however imper- 
fectly, business would not,be so good, prop- 
erty values would not be so high, nor 
human life and property so safe as the 
Church now helps to make it. That 
which does not go beyond his local Church 
is more of an investment than a gift and 
cannot measure a man’s stewardship. 
This does not apply to the Church which 
serves aS a storekouse and distributing 


93 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


agency and which sends out funds to 
Christian enterprises outside itself. But 
there are too many men who are not in- 
terested in the great missionary, chari- 
table, and educational work of the Church. 
They consider that their full duty is done 
when money for local Church needs has 
been provided. | 

Jesus counted the missionary work of 
the Church of primary importance. His 
last command was that his followers 
should carry the message of the abundant 
life to all men.” Not every man can go 
in person, but he who takes thoughtful 
account of his stewardship must recognize 
his duty and privilege in making it pos- 
sible for others to go. —To him who makes 
God’s interest his own, there is no other 
way. God is no respecter of persons, and 
he wants the joy-filled life for the Hindu 
and the Chinese, for the African and the 
Mexican as much as he wants it for us. 
When we remember that we are in no way 
responsible for the accident of having been 


10Matthew xxviil. 19, 20. 


94 


Administering as a Christian 


born in Christian America with her Chris- 
tian homes and Churches and schools and 
freedom and opportunity, we must face 
our responsibility of partnership and ask 
ourselves what God would have us to do 
about it. 

Jesus emphasized the duty and privilege 
of helping the poor and unfortunate and 
needy everywhere. He gives as the second 
greatest commandment that one is to love 
his neighbor as himself, and in the story of 
the Good Samaritan he shows our neigh- 
bors to be whosoever may be in need of us 
or of our substance. In his parable of the 
Judgment, the test of one’s discipleship 1s 
not his creed or his profession or the record 
of his Church attendance, but the naked he 
has clothed, the hungry fed, the prisoners 
ministered unto, and the sick cared for in 
the Master's name.” 

Jesus looked on childhood as supremely 
important."* Can you imagine Jesus buying 
fur coats, owning several cars, smoking ex- 





11Luke x. 25-37. 12Matthew xxv. 31-46. 
13Matthew xviii. 1-6, 10, 14. 


95 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


pensive cigars, or taking in all the picture 
shows while the children of the Near East 
starve and many in our own land are denied 
proper food and care and education? Ifa 
man would have the mind of the Christ 
who, when asked who should be first in the 
kingdom, placed a child in the midst, he 
may well pray with Saul Kane: 
*‘Lord, give to men who are old and rougher 

The things that little children suffer, 

But keep bright and undefiled 

The young years of a little child.’’14 
And in this day, when our so-called Chris- 
tian nation owns to the shame of a million 
child laborers, blessed is he who hurls his 
money and his vote and his influence after 
the prayer, that childhood all over the 
world may havea chance. 


Wuat Do WE SPEND ON OuRSELVES? 
Jesus severely condemned those who 
disregarded the needs of others and spent 
only for themselves. He told the story of 
Dives, who lived in his great house with 
14Masefield, ‘The Everlasting Mercy.” 
96 


Administering as a Christian 


his host of servants to wait on him and 
who wore purple and fine linen and fared 
sumptuously every day, while poor Laza- 
tus, treated kindly only by the dogs, was 
denied even the crumbs that fell from the 
table. Jesus’ condemnation of the rich 
fool was not alone for his greed and covet- 
ousness in acquiring. Look how he had 
planned to spend it! ‘‘Soul, thou hast 
much,....... catvdrinkyandi be merry," 
We cannot make the excuse for spending 
so much on ourselves on the ground that 
we arenotrich. It is very easy to condemn 
great wealth for its extravagance while 
we spend the same proportion of our in- 
come on selfish things. Compared to the 
people of the other countries of the world, 
the average American does “‘wear purple 
and fine linen and fare sumptuously every 
day.’’ A peasant family of France or Hol- 
land could live on the food the average 
American family wastes. Things that are 
considered unattainable luxuries in other 
countries have become commonplace ne- 


WLuke xvi. 19-31. 16Luke xii. 16-22. 


97 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


cessities for every shopgirl and stenog- 
rapher, for the milkman and the butcher. 
The first year after the war it was the 
government estimate that we spent over 
twelve billion dollars for luxuries. This 
was about one-twentieth of our national 
income. This bill of luxuries included 
such items as these: 


Cigars, cigarettes, tobacco, and snuff_-.$2,110,000,000 


Perfumes, face powder, and cosmetics... 750,000,000 
pa toga y Lo) Sa Pov SAME AARON AR SAE oP 350,000,000 
CRNOV A ee ie cLOU ICL une Waa anna 1,000,000,000 
Chewing warm. Cools ue eee ge 50,000,000 


Nor is this all spent by people who are 
wealthy. Not long agoa girl was bewail- 
ing the fact that she could not go to col- 
lege. When she was persuaded to count up 
her personal expenses of the month before 
she found that she was spending about 
ten dollars a month on cold drinks and 
candy. Families who complain about 
how hard it is to get along continue to 
go to the moving picture show three times 
a week. Men say they cannot give to the 
Church or send their children to college, 


98 


Administering as a Christian 


and yet they spend fifteen dollars a month 
on tobacco. A boy cannot afford to buy 
books, but he smokes two packages of 
cigarettes a day. A girl cannot afford to 
give to her Church, but she manages to 
keep supplied with silk stockings and 
cosmetics and to get her nails manicured 
at the beauty parlor. It is not that these 
things are wrong in themselves, but 
that we consider them more necessary 
than the values which Jesus said a man 
should count of supreme importance. 

Do you know how much you spend each 
year on clothes, on recreation, on nones- 
sentials, such as chewing gum, tobacco, 
cold drinks, candy, and picture shows? 
On the improvement of your mind, on 
charity, on yourChurch? No man cancall 
himself a Christian steward when he 
only Luesses that he is administering his 
income as Jesus would have him. 

A certain bank gets out the following 
schedule showing how you should spend 
your money when your income is one 
thousand to ten thousand dollars a year. 


99 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Recrea- Insur- Miscella- 
tion. ance. neous. 


$1,000 $400 $120 $300 $ 75 $ 60 $ 25 $ 20 


Income. Food. Clothing. Shelter. Savings. 


1,500 BOO EO MROND ES 75 50 80 
2.,000 SSO BOOP ATS eas OUn ROO. hor mee Hiner 
2.500 625 375 540 285 300 1 GaES 250 
3,000 FOO") | ALS) 6005 20OP4) raeR poor Lio 


3500 750 525 650 350 §00 225 500 
4,000 S50: 4 BOO) yk 72 goo) S8o\ 0 ato.) 16oq 
5,000 875 675 840 600 750 1400 #860 
7;500 1,200 800 1,200 1,200 1,200 800 1,100 
I0,000 1,300 1,000 1,400 1,800 1,600 1,200 1,700 


What is wrong with the budget? What 
scale of values has a man who leaves 
no place in his budget for self-improve- 
ment, nothing for the higher life, and 
absolutely nothing for others? There is 
not only no recognition of God in such a 
budget, but no recognition of the fact that 
man himself has any other than material 
needs. According to the provisions of this 
budget the mind and the soul might not be 
in existence. There is provision for food 
and for clothing and for shelter; there is a 
rather generous amount provided for rec- 
reation and a large proportion for the 
future—and all these things are worthy. 
But has a man no needs other than those 

100 


Administering as a Christian 


of the body? Our government recognized 
man’s duty to others in making a fifteen 
per cent exemption on his income tax for 
the money given to religious and chari- 
table purposes. Jesus said that man does 
not live by bread alone. Are we to be as 
the rich fool, storing in our barns, pamper- 
ing our bodies, saying ‘‘Eat, drink, and 
be merry’? Are we to value only goods 
while we ignore our own souls? Are we 
to ignore our fellow men without whom 
our property and our goods would be value- 
less? Are we to ignore God, without 
whom there can be no property? 


Our OBLIGATION TO GaD AND SOCIETY 


Where is the man who sits back and pro- 
claims that he made his money by honest 
hard work and that he has a right to spend 
it as he pleases? Such a one is either ig- 
norant or thoughtless, or else he deliberate- 
ly disregards the evidence before his eyes. 
It is estimated by economists that of the 
produce of a farm only five per cent can be 
attributed to human labor. The other 

IOI 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


ninety-five per cent must be attributed to 
God or nature, the soil, the rain, and the 
sunshine, over which man has no control. 
The Japanese earthquake, destroying prop- 
erty and in an hour making rich men pau- 
pers, shows that there is a power that 
makes and unmakes, and over which man 
has no control. After the devastation of 
the World War, the fall of the German 
mark and the Russian ruble which forced 
rulers from their thrones and the rich 
and highborn into menial service showed 
that man is dependent on society for the 
value of what he has. 

However much we may try to deny the 
fact, no man liveth unto himself. However 
much we might like to have it otherwise, 
God is still owner of this earth, and the 
breath of our lives is in his hands. How- 
ever much we may claim property as our 
own and chatter about having a right to do 
with it as we please because we earned it, 
it belonged to some one else before we 
came into the world, and it will be in the 
possession of some one else after we have 

102 


Administering as a Christian 


gone from this world. We have no 
assurance that we shall not lose it to-mor- 
row or that we shall have the mind and 
health to enjoy it. Whether we choose to 
recognize it or not, there is a difference in 
ownership and possession. The owner- 
ship still lies with the Creator, who has 
intrusted property to our possession for a 
little while. We have not all the same 
gifts of acquiring, not all the same endow- 
ment of mind or health or energy, but ac- 
cording to Jesus each man shall be held 
responsible for having administered ac- 
cording to that which was intrusted to 
him. Of him to whom much is given 
will much be required.” 

There are no self-made men. Every 
man who makes that claim, if he be hon- 
est with himself, knows that back some- 
where was good blood in his veins, or a 
mother’s memory, or a friend’s influence: 
something for which he is not responsible 
that inspired him to go on. Edward Bok 
might rise from newsboy to wealthy news- 


7] uke xii. 48. 
103 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


paper owner and Abraham Lincoln from 
rail-splitter to President, and to such men 
much credit is due. But what if Bok had 
been born of idle, shiftless parents, reared 
in the slums, in an atmosphere of crime 
and vice? What if Lincoln had lacked 
the memory of a good mother? These 
contributions of God and society are the 
priceless things of a man’s inheritance. 
No man achieves greatness without them; 
no man can be called self-made who has 
them. Are you recognizing your debt to 
God and society in the administering of 
these possessions of property or ability, of 
health and strength and energy, of life 
itself, which have been intrusted to you? 
Does this obligation to God and society 
mean that a man is to give away all that 
he has, that he must take a vow of pover- 
ty, or that only the barest necessities may 
be provided for himself? We find no in- 
dication that Jesus meant this. It is true 
that he told the rich young ruler to sell 
all that he had and give it to the poor, but 
the point of the story lies in the 
104 


Administering as a Christian 


fact that the young man had counted 
possessions of first importance. Zac- 
cheus was wealthy, but Jesus gave no 
such command to him, though he did 
rejoice when Zacchzus announced that 
he would give half of his possessions to 
the poor and that he would make it 
up to the people to whom he had been 
unfair and dishonest in his acquiring. 


STEWARDsHIP Is Not CoMMUNISM 


Stewardship does not mean that a man 
is to give all that he has to people who 
would not know how to use it. If you 
divided with your shiftless neighbors 
to-morrow, they would have wasted or 
lost it by next week. But suppose you 
invest a part of it in sending that boy to 
school, in giving him some good books to 
read, and in providing that little girl with 
decent clothes to wear to school and to 
church? May you not be helping to elim- 
inate shiftlessness and poverty in the 
next generation? Suppose you help sup- 
port that day nursery and kindergarten 

105 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


in the slums, so that the children of those 
ineflicient parents may get proper food and 
education, the ambition and the inspira- 
tion that come of association with 
Christian men and women. Suppose 
you help maintain that Wesley House 
where mothers are taught how to provide 
proper food, and how to care for their 
babies; where girls are taught how they 
may become efficient home makers, and 
where foreign boys are taught in night 
school to become respectable, independent, 
and law-abiding citizens. 

Suppose you help support the Chris- 
tian Association in their efforts to make 
the youth. of our land safe and sane and 
fine by providing the decent living con- 
ditions and normal recreation that play 
so large a part in helping develop 
citizens and home makers of which we 
may be proud. Suppose you give liberally 
to the Boy Scouts, that boys may be 
trained for citizenship. Suppose you pro- 
vide playgrounds and milk stations, that 
the children of the poor may have a chance 

106 


Administering as a Christian 


to be better and more useful men and 
women than their fathers and mothers 
have been. Suppose you help to stamp 
out tuberculosis and other diseases. Sup- 
pose you help some poor but ambitious boy 
or girl to go through college. Did Jesus 
say for a man to use his money for these 
things? Read again the story of his life 
if you would have the answer. These are 
the values which Jesus counted important, 
these are the interests which Jesus put first. 
These are the things which are of primary 
interest to God the Father. Where is that 
steward and partner who lets things crowd 
out the interest of his father? No wonder 
Jesus did not think tithing was enough! 
A tithe of man’s income might be enough 
for the strictly religious needs, but a man, 
as a steward, must regard the other nine- 
tenths if he is to administer rightly his 


property. 
STEWARDSHIP AND THE FAMILY 
But is not a man’s first duty to his fam- 


ily2 We have seen that Jesus approved 
107 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


the normal life for man, and that he ex- 
pected a man to provide for the needs 
of those dependent on him. Every man 
owes it to himself to have proper food 
and as comfortable a home as he can 
provide. He owes it to himself to have 
books and music and recreation. A man 
owes it to his family to provide the com- 
forts and conveniences, that the home 
be made attractive and pleasant, and to 
provide for recreation, for entertaining 
friends, for education, for books and 
music and flowers. A man has a right 
—we must say a duty—to spend a part 
of his income on these things. But he 
has no right to spend all or an undue 
amount of his incomeon these. It must be 
apportioned as is in keeping with his Part- 
ner’s interest. 

But some one says, “‘It takes all we can 
make to provide the necessities, and 
there is never enough to goround.’’ Then 
there is likely something wrong with the 
standard of living. Much of it is due to 
carelessness in spending. If young men 

108 


Administering as a Christian 


and women who start out to earn their 
own living would sit down and make for 
themselves a budget of which they think 
their Partner would approve, and would 
then keep careful accounts in an effort to 
stay within the budget, how much more 
they would have for themselves and how 
much more for others! Dozens of people 
will testify that, although they thought 
they were spending as little as possible, 
they found that with the budget and ac- 
counts they got along on five or ten per 
cent less and had more to show for the 
money spent. Whena manearns and spends 
his money as a steward, has he a right 
to follow careless and inefficient methods? 
It isa part of his stewardship to learn to 
spend wisely. 

And the man with a family—does he 
not owe it to himself and to his family 
that they may be partners in his steward- 
ship? Many a man would like to admin- 
ister his funds as a steward, but feels that 
he cannot because his family demands all 
that he can earn. But why should it be 

109 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


so? There is many a wife blamed for ex- 
travagance who, if she knew the real sit- 
uation, would be glad to cooperate with 
her husband in the administering of the 
family income. Is it not in keeping with 
the spirit of Jesus that the family sit down 
together, consider the family resources, 
and together decide how it shall be admin- 
istered? Children who would be resentful 
of being denied some luxury by the parents 
will cheerfully deny it to themselves when 
they havea share in the decision as to how 
the family income shall be spent. Whata 
training for the future, what lessons on the 
right scale of values, what an influence to- 
ward family solidarity, what a privilege 
of stewardship a man has who brings his 
family together that they, in partnership 
with each other and with God, may make 
distribution of the family income! 

If, as Jesus said, it is hard for a rich man 
to enter the kingdom, how much harder 
for the rich man’s son! Every man has an 
obligation to his family, and it is his duty 
as well as his privilege to provide the 

110 


Administering as a Christian 


necessities of life, conveniences where pos- 
sible, and to add to that as he can those 
comforts and simple luxuries which make 
life beautiful and pleasant. But far too 
many men do not recognize their obliga- 
tion to put the character of their children 
before the children’s pleasure. Far too 
few recognize that a part of their own 
stewardship is in training their children 
to be good stewards. Many men who 
started out as poor boys bring up their 
own children to have every whim grati- 
fied, every luxurious impulse satisfied, 
while the children have no thought of 
the cost, no realization of what good 
the money spent on useless things might 
do. Habits of extravagance, selfishness, 
and inconsideration are developed. The 
whole future is handicapped by a false 
emphasis on things, by a false scale of 
values, and by the feeling that life does 
consist in the abundance of things which 
one possesses. “I want my children to 
have an easier time than I did’’ has been 
the excuse of many a man who forgets that 
III 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


had he had such an easy time he probably 
would never have attained his present 
position. 

And what happens when these overin- 
dulged children grow up? A girl marries a 
man she does not love because he can give 
her the luxuries to which she has been 
accustomed; or if she marries a man who 
is not rich, she finds that she does not 
know how to live simply. Debt and 
unhappiness, if not a worse tragedy, re- 
sult. The son marries a girl for her 
money or does not marry at all because he 
has grown used to luxuries which his own 
earnings could not supply to a family. 
The priceless things a man can give his 
children are the things which money 
cannot buy. Self-control, sacrifice, initia- 
tive, independence, resoursefulness, and 
all the qualities essential to Christian 
character are killed when a child has his 
every wish gratified. No man can be 
called a good steward who spends his 


money to the hurt of his children. 
oo) 


Administering as a Christian 
Has A Man 4 Ricut to Be Rico? 


Does the Christian have a right to be 
tich? How much of what he makes does 
aman have aright to put back into the en- 
largement of his business or his capital? 
These are questions which every business 
man who seeks to be a Christian must face 
andanswer. However difficult they may at 
first appear, they become quite simple 
when a man remembers his partnership. 
What would his Partner think? It isnot so 
much a question as to whether a man has 
a tight to get rich, for we have seen that 
it is in keeping with Jesus’ attitude that 
man shall earn all he honestly can so long 
as it is not at the sacrifice of finer values. 
But does a man have a right to stay rich? 
Does he have a right to put his money 
into tax-exempt securities instead of into 
productive business enterprises? Does he 
have a right to keep on reinvesting his 
money that it may grow and grow? If so, 
when does he expect it to perform its real 
mission? And how does he know that it 

113 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


will be used in a Christian way after he 
has gone? There is no doubt that big 
business concerns may render a real serv- 
ice; and a man who looks on his business 
as a means of service, who produces hon- 
est goods to be sold at honest prices, and 
who deals fairly with his workers, may 
feel that his Partner approves his steward- 
ship in that respect. But shall he reinvest 
his growing profits in order that his busi- 
ness may grow larger and larger, or shall 
he put his profits into securities to net him 
more income, or shall he invest his profits 
in human personality? Russell J. Conwell 
used to take enough from the proceeds 
of his lectures to pay his expenses to the 
next town and send a check for the balance 
tosome worthy boy who was trying to go 
to college. William Colgate reached the 
place where he felt that his business was 
big enough, and thereafter the profits went 
into philanthropic channels. 

There is a service in business; but when 
does a business get so big that a man’s 
money had better be turned into other 

114 


Administering as a Christian 


channels rather than into the increase 
of capital? There is a difference between 
the man who builds up a business, at 
the same time investing in churches and 
colleges and other institutions, and the 
man who puts his money back into capital, 
for his children to dissipate after he is 
gone. Our government is beginning to 
recognize that property is a thing for serv- 
ice rather than for unlimited selfishness 
when it distinguishes between earned and 
unearned incomes, places special taxes on 
inherited property, and allows a man 
exemption on the money he gives away. 

Let a man earn all he can so long as he 
earns in keeping with Jesus’ standard of 
acquiring, but let him remember also his 
partnership in administering. Let him re- 
member the values his Father and Partner 
counts of most importance; let him remem- 
ber that property is ever to serve personal- 
ity, not to sacrifice it: and in such partner- 
ship, whether his income be in hundreds 
or in millions, he can make it do the will 
of God. 


tI5 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND STUDY 
CHAPTER IV. ADMINISTERING AS A CHRISTIAN 


Purpose: To show that a man can administer as @ steward 
only when he spends his money in keeping with the interests of his 
Partner, God. 


1. For what things must a man spend his money in order to 
provide for the needs of the normal life? What reasons have you 
for thinking that Jesus would approve of every man’s meeting 
these needs? 

2. Can a man be generous in the administering of his income and 
yet fail in his stewardship? Why is a man’s contribution to his 
local Church needs more of an investment than a gift? Why is it 
not enough for a man to provide for the needs of his own home 
Church and community? What other interests did Jesus count 
important? 

3. What lesson does Jesus teach in the parable of the judgment? 
What attitude do you think Jesus would have had toward child 
labor? Toward Near East Relief? Toward underprivileged chil- 
dren everywhere? What reason have you for your answer? 

4. Does the story of Dives apply only to therich, or is there a 
lesson in it for the average American? What significance do you 
see in the amount which Americans spend for luxuries? How 
does this compare with what we spend for education? for the 
Church? 

5- Do you know how your own expenditures for luxuries com- 
pare with what you spend for self-improvement? for others? for 
your Church? for missions? 

6. Can a man be said to administer his income as a steward 
when he spends more on his club than on his Church? Can a girl 
spend more for cosmetics than for self-improvement and be a good 
steward? Can a boy spend more for cigarettes than for books and 
be a good steward? 

7. What is wrong with the budget which is listed? What kind 


I16 


Administering as a Christian 


of man would you judge made it? What kind of country would 
ours be if all men apportioned their income on this basis? 

8. What principle of stewardship do you see in the govern- 
ment’s allowance of exemption of gifts to religious and chari- 
table institutions? In the inheritance tax? In the distinction 
between earned and unearned incomes? 

9. Do you keep a budget? If not, how do you know that you 
are administering as a steward? Make out as nearly as youcana 
budget of the way you spend your income now. Do you think 
your Partner would approve? 

to. On the basis of your present income, and remembering 
God's supreme interest in the world, make out a budget of which 
you think your Partner would approve. 

11. Why has a man no right to say that it is all right for him 
to spend his money as he pleases since he made it himself? Can 
any man make money by himself? What two factors are necessary 
in addition to his own effort? 

12. Does privilege mean power, or does it mean obligation? 
Does stewardship mean that a man should divide up with the 
neighbors? Why not? How can a man use his income as a 
steward? 

13. How can a man take his family into partnership in his 
stewardship? Do you think homes would be happier if the 
money question were solved according to Jesus’ standards? Do 
you think Jesus would approve of a family budget in which all 
decided for what things the family income would be spent? 
Why do you think so? 

14. What is a child’s best legacy? Why? 

15. Does a Christian have a right to be rich? Should he leave 
a fortune to his children? Base your answer on what you think 
Jesus would approve. 

16. Is there a real service which capital can render? When does 
business get too big to be Christian? 

17. How is a man to know whether he is administering as a 
steward? What is the real test of stewardship? 


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CHAPTER V 


Tur SEPARATED PorRTION 


“He is dead whose heart is not open wide 
To help the need of a human brother; 
He doubles the length of his lifelong ride 
Who gives his fortunate place to another; 
And a thousand million lives are his 
Who carries the world in his sympathies— 
To give is to live.” —Lowell. 


CHAPTER V 
THE SEPARATED PORTION 


**And must I keep giving again and again?” 
*O no!”’ said the Angel— 

His glance pierced me through— 
“Just give till the Master 

Stops giving to you!” 


THE First THInGs OF THE KINGDOM 


Jesus did not teach legalistic tithing. 
We cannot be sure that he taught tith- 
ing at all, though he did commend its 
principle when he told the hypocritical 
Pharisees that they should have observed 
both the law of the tithe and the weightier 
matters of mercy and faith and justice. 
Wecan be sure that Jesus went beyond tith- 
ing when he taught the stewardship of 
all property; when he went beyond all 
the requirements of legalism. It was as if 
he had said: In the olden days, when you 
were children, God demanded a tenth of 
you, not only for his work’s sake, but for 
yours, that you might not fail to be re- 

121 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


minded that he came first. But you have 
outgrown that. As children of the Father 
and coworkers with me, I am intrusting 
the kingdom to you. Iam leaving you the 
Great Commission to carry the abundant 
life to all men. Iam leaving you the ex- 
ample of a life of sacrificial service. Now 
that you are partners, you could never be 
satisfied with a tithe. I leave it to you. 
*‘Freely you have received, freely give!’” 
Does this argue against the separated 
portion, or rather does it not argue for it? 
Jesus counted liberality toward others 
as one of the greatest virtues. He had the 
severest condemnation for those who used 
their possessions selfishly and who counted 
things of more importance than persons. 
He told his disciples to seek first the king- 
dom and trust God to add the things less 
essential. He told those who followed 
him that they must take up the cross, deny 
self, put it last—not first. We say a man 
has “‘got to live.’’ But has he? Jesus said 
that he who saved his life—at the cost of 


~ IMatthew x. 8. Matthew vi. 24-33. %Matthew xvi. 24. 
I22 


The Separated Portion 


crowding out the soul values, such as 
unselfishness, generosity, and compassion 
—shall lose it. There are more ways than 
one by which aman may save his life, only 
to lose it in the process. The boy who saved 
thirteen lives in the Chicago fire at the 
cost of his own life died with a smile as he 
said, ““To this end was I born, and for this 
cause came I into the world, that I might 
save the lives of thirteen people.’’ The 
man who trampled women and little 
children to death in his mad frenzy to save 
his own life lost it in the memory of his 
awful deed of putting physical life above 
courage and fineness. The memory of 
the horrible cowardice made life so un- 
bearable that it ended in insanity. 

But there are men all about us who 
thoughtlessly go on each day putting their 
physical needs first, who find plenty to 
provide for their bodies while the soul 
qualities of generosity and sympathy and 
service dry up and wither away because 
they are never used. 


4Matthew xvi. 25, 26. 
123 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Consciously or unconsciously we spend 
our money for the things which are of most 
importance tous. And self is so insistent. 
We know the Master’s standard. We 
know that he put the interests of the 
kingdom first, that he went beyond what 
the Jewsdid. Howcanwebe sure of doing 
either of these things unless we take our- 
selves in hand and thoughtfully and de- 
liberately set aside a portion for the values 
which Jesus said should come first? The 
Old Testament teaching which the Jews 
followed said that the tithe should be set 
aside first. The promise of Jehovah was 
to those who gave the first fruits.s Paul 
admonished the early Church to lay by 
each week as God had prospered. Jesus 
said, ‘‘Seek first the kingdom.’’ This by 
no means measures a man’s stewardship 
or indicates that other portions are not to 
be used for the kingdom. It only safe- 
guards, not only the needs of the kingdom, 
but the needs of our own souls, lest un- 
consciously we should put the kingdom 


5Proverbs iii. 9, 10. 


124 


The Separated Portion 


last, and in saving our lives should starve 
and lose our own souls in sordid selfish- 
ness. 

But some one argues: “‘If all is God’s, 
why set aside the special portion? We are 
stewatds, and therefore we use all for 
him.’’ But there is a danger of our giving 
everything in general and nothing in par- 
ticular unless we safeguard ourselves. 
Can we be sure that we shall not be like 
those of whom Jesus said, ‘“Why call ye 
me Lord, Lord, and do not the things 
which I say?’’s Or like those who say 
piously that all they have is God’s and 
pray, ‘“Thy kingdom come,”’ and yet who 
never put aside any of their means to bring 
the kingdom in? We put aside enough for 
our tent or our taxes. We do not want to 
be put out into the street or to have our 
houses sold over our heads! Those who 
claim to accept the principles of Chris- 
tian stewardship must show their faith 
by their works. 

Suppose we wait until we feel like it 


6Luke vi. 46. 
I25 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


or until some call comes before we give. 
What chance has the kingdom? On every 
hand the modern advertiser bids for our 
money. The latest picture show is adver- 
tised in enormous headlines or with a 
brass band. The shop windows are so 
decorated as to make us sure that we must 
have new clothes at once or forever be 
disgraced. The grocer sends his wares to 
our door and invites our attention to his 
most tempting display of foods. The 
children announce impressively that every 
other boy in high school has a baseball 
suit and every girl in the class is to have a 
new dress for the class banquet, or all the 
fellows at college own their own cars. 
Our neighbors buy a new car, a baby 
grand piano, or a radio set, and we 
begin to feel sure that life is not worth 
living unless we do likewise. Our friends 
maintain a standard of living which is 
constantly inviting our own standard to 
come up higher. 

In all this din of worldly calls what 
chance has the kingdom of keeping its 

126 


The Separated Portion 


rightful place? How easy to forget, to let 
slip out of out minds, to leave no money 
for the very things which Jesus said should 
come first! “Because we are human there 
must be a separated portion, sacredly kept, 
lest the cares of the world and the deceit- 
fulness of riches spring up like thorns and 
crowd out the good we mean to do and the 
spiritual realities which should have pre- 
eminence in our lives. 


GIVING THE KINGDOM A CHANCE 


Only the consecrated imagination can 
see and hear the silent and invisible appeal 
of the really important things. A man sat 
through his first session as a member of the 
Board of Missions of hisChurch. He heard 
the estimates of the needs of the various 
fields. He heard the missionaries plead 
for more funds for their work. He heard 
them tell of boys and girls who walked 
through hundreds of miles of bandit-in- 
fested country to come to school, only to 
be turned away because there was no 
money to keep them. He heard of the 

127 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


waiting list of hundreds of boys who 
pleaded to be allowed to stand during 
class if only they might be permitted to 
enter the already overcrowded mission 
schools. He heard of Bible women who 
must work without Bibles, of doctors who 
lacked instruments and medicines, of 
preachers whose congregations were wor- 
shiping in barns. 

He heard of the community center in his 
own city which must be closed because 
there were no funds to carry on the work; 
he heard of the boys and girls in the 
mountains of his own State who were 
turned away for lack of room in the school 
which had offered their only hope of so 
much as learning to read. He heard of 
the bright young men and women who had 
dedicated their lives to the service of the 
world and who had spent years in prep- 
aration only to be told by the boards that 
there was no money to send them to the 
field. He knew that the Church was rich 
enough to meet every need. He heard it 
said and proved that only a tenth of the 

128 


The Separated Portion 


income of the members of his own Church 
would man and equip every field, build 
the churches and schools so needed, care 
for the needs of the homeland, open up 
new fields, and send out the waiting youth 
who had hoped that they might have a 
share in making possible the abundant 
life for the whole world. 

The man went home to give as he had 
never given before, but he found it hard 
to interest his friends. There was not 
a man of them but would have given 
had he heard those appeals. If they 
could come to our doors; if they could 
call to us as loudly as the merchant and 
the grocer and the entertainer call their 
wares; if we could see them as vividly 
as we see the shop windows and the 
works of art which make up modern 
magazine advertising, then the kingdom 
might stand a chance to get a rightful 
share, to hold its rightful place, and there 
would not be so much need of the sepa- 
rated portion. 

If that Belgian refugee had fallen naked 


129 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


and starved in your street; if that Near East 
orphan had lain in an unconscious heap 
of emaciated flesh across your doorstep; 
if you had found that abandoned baby 
on your ash pile; if you could have stood 
beside that teacher as she turned away 
a bright-eyed girl who had to walk 
back the hundred miles she had come, 
knowing that it meant she must be 
sold into marriage to a man three times 
her age and already the possessor of sev- 
eral wives; if you could hear the daily 
cry of the starving, naked, sick men, 
women, and children who make up the 
other half of the world; if you could 
hear their cries of ignorance pleading for 
light, disease pleading for healing, op- 
pression pleading for release, fear pleading 
for the gospel that casts out fear; if these 
cries of those whom the Master called 
your neighbors could reach your ears, 
then you might give as you saw the need, 
without the necessity of a separated 
portion. 

On the day of the Great Accounting 

130 


The Separated Portion 


may the Master call you to come with 
those to whom he shall say, “I was naked, 
and ye clothed me; sick and in prison, and 
ye visited me; hungry, and ye fed me!’” 
And as you, wondering, answer, ‘‘Master, 
when saw I thee hungry or naked or sick 
or in prison and ministered unto thee?’’ 
then may the Master say to you: ‘I was 
that Near East orphan whom your money 
clothed and fed; I was that Belgian refugee 
whose life was kept in his body by your 
gifts; I was that mountain girl starving for 
knowledge, whose education you made 
possible; I was that Chinese baby rescued 
from the ash pile because your gifts to 
missions made it possible for her to be 
educated and trained for usefulness and 
service. Even more, I was that whole 
African village, brought from the prison 
house of ignorance and poverty, disease 
and nakedness, by that young evangelist 
whose Christian life and training were 
made possible by your gifts to missions. 
Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of 


7Matthew xxv. 36. 
131 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


these, ye did it unto me. Come, ye blessed 
of my Father.”’ 

Blessed is he of the consecrated imagi- 
nation who thoughtfully and deliberately 
sets aside a portion of his income, kept 
sacred to the kingdom, and set aside 
before any other demands are considered. 
Only the day of the Great Accounting 
shall reveal the places to which it has gone 
ot the good it has done. 


Givinc Our Souts A CHANCE 


But the separated portion does more 
than give the kingdom a chance. It gives 
our souls a chance. Why did Jesus say 
that it is more blessed to give than to rfe- 
ceive?’ Was it not because that whicha man 
receives may enrich him materially, but 
that which he gives enlarges and enriches 
his own soul in the process? It is very easy 
for a man’s possessions to come first. Be- 
fore he knows it the finer values have been 
crowded out, and selfish habits set up 
which are hard to break. 


8Acts xx. 35. 
132 


The Separated Portion 


It is told that a certain preacher was 
using Wesley’s famous sermon on money. 
He had elaborated the statement that a 
man should earn all he can, and it was met 
with hearty amens. He came to the ad- 
monition to save all you can, and it was 
likewise approved. But when he reached 
the ‘‘give all you can,’’ the old man 
whose amens had been loudest said: ‘‘O 
no! Nowyou’vespoileditall.’’ Like the 
rich young ruler, he might keep all the 
commandments, and earnestly desire to 
follow the Master, but the money test was 
too much for him. 

Few men learn to give liberally after they 
havebecomerich. And herein lies another 
value of the separated portion. The habit 
of setting aside a special portion, if started 
when a child or before one’s income grows 
large, is a safeguard for the future. 

William Colgate is an example of such 
stewardship. When as a small boy he 
started out to be a soap maker an old man 
gave him this advice: ‘‘Makea good soap, 
give an honest pound, and don’t forget 

133 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


God’s part.’ The boy started out by giving 
ten cents of every dollar he made. As he 
prospered he increased the proportion, then 
increased it again until in later years he 
announced that he had enough to live on 
and that henceforth the entire profits of 
his business should be used for others. 
The separated portion is imperative for our 
own weak human wills. 

Covetousness is a thing which grows and 
grows. Self is a monster that is ever ready 
to demand more and more. We need every 
precaution to keep it in its place. The 
author of the following little poem calls 
it ‘“‘“Growth,’’ but it might be named 
‘Self’ or ‘““Covetousness’’: 

“It was such a little, little sin, 
And such a great big day, 
That I thought the hours would swallow it, » 
Or the wind blow it away. 
But the moments passed so swiftly, 
And the wind died out somehow, 


And the sin that was a weakling 
Is a hungry giant now.’’? 


Dare we take the risk of our lives 


%John Richard Moreland, in ‘‘The Lyric.”’ 


134 


- ~ < - 


oleae 


The Separated Portion 


becoming dominated by the sordid things 
that make up an existence when self is 
in the center? The separated portion, 
thoughtfully and deliberately set aside 
before any other demands are considered, 
is in itself a valuable safeguard of our 
souls, demanding that we stop and con- 
sider whose we ate, why we are here, and 
what are the first things of life. 


Wuat Amount SHALL [tT Br? 


According to Jesus, the separated por- 
tion should be in proportion to one’s 
means. In sending out his disciples he 
set no limit on the hours they were to 
work or the amount they were to give. 
‘Freely ye have received, freely give.’ 
We cannot imagine Jesus’ interpreting 
‘‘freely’’ to mean less than the Jews of his 
time gave. He expected his followers to 
go beyond the requirements of legalism. 
He who claims to follow the Master and 
yet says he cannot afford the proportion 
the Jews gave is either very, very poor or 





10Matthew x. 8. 


>) 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


blessed with much temerity. In the face 
of the luxury and waste and extravagance 
of America to-day, to say that one cannot 
afford a tenth of his income for the things 
the Master gave his life for! These same 
people do afford automobiles, clubs, cigar- 
ettes and cigars, candy, chewing gum, 
picture shows, silk stockings, and a 
thousand other things that are luxurious 
or nonessential. 

A man says: ‘But I have a family. We 
do not have luxuries, and it is all we can 
do to live on our income now. If I take 
out a tenth, it means giving up things that 
are necessities... Come with me to a 
mountain side." Here is a teacher and a 
group of humble followers who are con- 
cerned about this very question of what 
they shall eat and what they shall wear. 
‘Seek first the kingdom,’’ he has told 
them, ‘‘and these other things will be 
added.’’ Jesus had a right to say that. 
He had left his home and his carpenter 
shop to do the will of his Father. He did 


Matthew vi. 33. 


136 


The Separated Portion 


not worry about where the next meal was 
coming from, nor where he would sleep. 
Nor would he use his power to provide 
these things when they were lacking. 
He had refused to do that from the very 
beginning, when the tempter had sug- 
gested that the stones be made bread. 
The foxes have holes and the birds have 
nests, he told a would-be follower, but I 
must sleep on a hillside under the stars.1 
Do not be anxious about what you are to eat 
and what you are to wear. Life is more 
than food and the body more than clothes. 

Where is your faith? Look at the birds; 
does not God take care of them? You 
know you ate worth more than they. 
Look at these lilies about you; their 
beauty is their only excuse for being, yet 
Solomon in all his glory was not so beau- 
tifully arrayed. All this worry over 
things might do for Gentiles or pagans, 
but not for children of the Father! Put God 
and the kingdom first, and all these things 
will be cared for. 


12Matthew viii. 20; Luke ix. 58. 


£37 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


This is not an appeal to self-interest, but 
to faith. The man who sets aside a tithe 
because he thinks that in some miraculous 
way God will make his nine-tenths go 
farther is certain to suffer disillusion. But 
the man who gives first thought to the 
concern of the kingdom will find that 
faith justified. Countless books could be 
filled with the stories of those who know 
that this is true—stories of those who 
have taken God at his word and found that 
all the things needful have been added. 
They do more to justify their own faith 
than they know. A man who has a sense 
of partnership with the Father, a man 
who dares to count God’s interest of 
primary importance, even when he is 
not sure what he shall eat and wear— 
that man has created within himself the 
best possible assurance of prosperity and 
success. No wonder men testify that 
salaries are raised, better positions offered, 
unexpected opportunities opened! And 
these things are neither miracles nor yet ac- 
cidents. They are the natural consequences 

138 


ee ee a ae 


The Separated Portion 


of the new faith and enthusiasm which 
come with the sense of stewardship. They 
come with the new meaning that one’s 
everyday work takes on when it is done in 
partnership with the Father. It is no 
sordid bargain for prosperity, but an ad- 
venture of faith which brings its blessing. 
But even at the price of sacrifice, are 
we not to follow the Master in giving 
first place to the kingdom? How can we 
spend money on ourselves and then claim 
that we can find only a pittance for the 
kingdom? How can we face the Master, 
who stood over against the treasury that 
day and watched the rich give of their 
abundance, and spoke no word until a poor 
widow dropped in her mite, her living, all 
that she had, and went away, supperless, 
perhaps, because her gift was a sacrifice? 
Of such did the Master approve." ‘‘Freely 
give.’ If our incomes are small, we may 
start with a tenth. Certainly we can find 
no foundation for less than that. Many of 
us should make it more. And ever must 


13Mark xii. 43, 44. 
139 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money — 


we remember that the separated portion is 
only a part of our stewardship. 

But some one still argues: ‘‘I give as 
liberally as I can. Why insist on a sepa- 
rated portion? I cannot make it any 
special portion, because I do not know 
what my income is.’’ There might have 
been a time when one could have had such 
an excuse; but in this day, when the gov- 
ernment requires of us an income tax report, 
we can no longer say that. Then suppose 
we reverse the situation. Suppose your 
rich uncle offered to make you a present 
each year equal to ten per cent of all you 
made. Would it be so difficult to estimate 
your income? 

Again we often hear: “‘I am sure that I 
give more than a tenth; I do not keep ac- 
counts, because I don’t like the idea of 
keeping account with God, but I am sure 
that it is more than a tenth.”’ Many a 
Christian has honestly thought he was 
giving liberally until he went to make out 
the religious and charity exemption on his 
income tax report. The cold figures have 

140 


The Separated Portion 


all too often revealed the humiliating 
truth that he was giving far less than a 
tenth. Jesus would not have us make of 
our giving a burden of accounting, or of 
the separated portion a rigid amount 
which would take away its spirit. But a 
special amount set aside regularly and 
systematically and administered as a stew- 
ard, robs our giving of none of its spirit. On 
the other hand it assures the kingdom of 
its rightful share, assures us that self does 
not come first, and makes us ever ready to 
meet the calls which may deserve our help. 


THE ADMINISTERING OF THE SEPARATED 
PorTION 


We must remember that the separated 
portion is to be administered as becomes a 
faithful steward. Not every beggar on the 
street is to be helped, regardless of the 
genuineness of his need, merely because 
we have some of our separated portion on 
hand. Thoughtful stewardship will lead 
us to administer this portion with equal or 
greater care than those portions which 

141 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


meet our own needs. Jesus’ teaching leads 
us to see that every man is his own ad- 
ministrator, and that he must be as careful 
in his administration of the tithe as he 
is that he acquires honestly and adminis- 
ters rightly the rest of his income. Setting 
aside the separated portion is not enough. 
It must be expended so as to bring the 
largest returns to the kingdom. 

Ina Church where many of the members 
give at least the tenth and where the pro- 
gram of the Church is broad and inclusive, 
reaching out to missionary, educational, 
and charitable enterprises, a man may give 
the most of his separated portion through 
the channels of the Church and trust the 
Church to distribute it. But in many cases 
this would not meet the obligation of 
stewardship. Suppose he is a man of 
means and his contribution is large, while 
his Church program is not particularly 
broad. Too large a proportion of his gifts 
might make other members feel their 
responsibility less, and they would leave 
him to keep up most of the Church ex- 

E42 


The Separated Portion 


penses. In this case, after he has given a 
fair proportion to the regular needs of the 
Church, the remainder of his gifts may be 
given through the Church but directed to 
whatever mission, or cause, he feels will 
bring the largest returns. This means that 
a man must study the needs of the world 
as well as those of his own community if 
he is to administer as a steward. He 
would not make business investments in 
China or Japan or in his own city without 
considering their respective merits. Asa 
stewatd he must consider carefully the 
placing of his separated portion, that it 
be not dissipated, but that it yield for the 
kingdom the largest possible returns. 
What should be included in the things 
to which we give the separated portion? 
It is generally conceded that this amount 
should be given to those causes which are 
directly related to the progress of the 
kingdom. All worth-while things may 
be said to contribute indirectly to the 
kingdom, but there are certain things 
which make a direct contribution. A man 


143 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


should give at least a tenth of his 
income to these specifically religious 
enterprises and at the same time recognize 
that there are many other charitable and 
community causes which should be aided 
out of all other portions of his income. 
When we have the spirit of the Master and 
remember that he required no rigid pro- 
portion and no mechanical law, but a 
spirit of love which puts the kingdom 
first, petty questions will solve themselves. 
As we grow in the grace of freely giving 
out of the love of our hearts, we shall no 
longer bargain with the Lord, but work 
in partnership with him in his purpose for 
the world. 





QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND STUDY. 
CHAPTER V. THE SEPARATED PORTION 


Purpose: To show that for the sake of the kingdom and of our 
own souls, a separated portion is essential and that there is no 
valid reason why this amount should ever be less than that which 
the Jews gave. 

1. How many times does Jesus mention tithing? Is this enough 


to convince you that he approved of tithing? 
2. Tithing was a requirement of legalism. If Jesus went beyond 


144 


The Separated Portion 


legalism, what position would he likely take in regard to the 
tithe? 

3. What did Jesus count of first importance? Does this argue 
for or against a separated portion? Can we be sure that we put 
the kingdom first or go beyond legalism unless we set aside a 
portion of our income for the kingdom? 

4. Why is it not enough to say that we are stewards and that 
therefore all belongs to God? Why will it not do to wait until 
a call comes to give? 

5- Why do the needs of the kingdom not stand an equal chance 
with more worldly needs? 

6. What is a consecrated imagination? How may one be de- 
veloped? 

7. What chance do you have of being among those called 
*‘blessed’’ on the day of the Great Accounting? 

8. Where are the naked and sick and hungry that you are caring 
for in the Master’s name? Are you sending out your separated 
portion that it may do a part of this service for you? Does it 
relieve you of your responsibility that you cannot see or hear 
the poor and downtrodden and suffering because they aren’t found 
in your neighborhood? 

9. Does the separated portion give the kingdomachance? How 
does it give our souls a chance? Do you take the risk of letting 
first things be crowded out? 

10. What amount should the separated portion be? Can you 
find any foundation for making it less than a tenth? In what 
circumstance should it be more than a tenth? 

11. Should one give a tenth even if his income is barely enough 
to meet his needs? Why? What did Jesus have to say about it? 

12. Why can a man no longer make the excuse that he does not 
know the amount of his income? 

13. Does a separated portion rob our giving of its spirit, or does 
it merely safeguard the interests of the kingdom and of our own 
souls? 


145 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


14. Should all of the separated portion be given through the 
Church? If not, why not? 

15. For what objects may the separated portion be used? Are 
there other charitable causes that should be helped from other 
portions of our income? 

16. Who is responsible for the administration of the separated 
portion? Why should it be administered with such care? 


146 


CHAPTER VI 


Money IN Our SCALE OF VALUES 





‘To dress, to call, to dine, to break 

No canon of the social code, 

The little laws that lacqueys make, 
The futile decalogue of mode— 

How many a soul for these things lives 
With pious passion, grave intent! ... 

And never ev’n in dreams has seen 
The things that are more excellent.”” 

—William Watson. 


CHAPTER VI 
MONEY IN OUR SCALE OF VALUES 


“Life is what we ate alive to. It is not length, but breadth. 
To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, 
and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, history, 
poetry, music, flowers, stars, God, and eternal hope, is to be 
all but dead.’’—Babcock. 


MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUES 


THE real test of our stewardship lies in 
the place we give to material things in our 
lives, the value we place on money and the 
things which money can buy, in relation 
to moral and spiritual values. How es- 
sential are material things to our hap- 
piness? What values of mind and character 
are we willing to sacrifice in order to get 
the material things of life? The answer 
lies, not in what we say, but in our efforts 
to get money and the things for which we 
spend it—the place of things in our lives. 

The conflict of material and spiritual 
values confronted Jesus in the beginning 
of his ministry. He had to decide which 
was to have precedence in his life. 

149 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Jesus had tasted many days. Resistance 
was lowered. He was weak and hungry, 
in that state of reaction which follows a 
period of spiritual exultation, and in 
which temptations are always strongest. 
“Command that the stones be made 
bread,’’ the tempter suggested. Jesus 
might have argued that this was a matter 
of necessity, that his work would be im- 
possible if he died from hunger. But 
Jesus would not sell his soul for bread.! 

Satan tried again. He brought before 
the mind of Jesus all the kingdoms of the 
world and the glory of them. “‘All these 
things will I give you,”’ he said. And the 
price? “‘Just fall down and worship me.’ 
How simple! Nobody need ever know. 
But Jesus refused to sell his soul for 
things.? 

Most men give intellectual assent to 
Jesus’ statement that one cannot serve both 
God and mammon, but many of them 
try to do it anyway. In this no one 
ever succeeds. How can one share God’s 


1Matthew iv. 3, 4. *Matthew iv. 8-11. 
150 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


eagerness of the abundant life for all 
men and at the same time use property 
or possession for selfish ends? This does 
not mean that a man may not have great 
possessions, and yet serve God. But it 
does mean that while he cannot serve God 
and tiches, he can serve God with riches. 

William James, the psychologist, gives 
a rather striking definition of conversion. 
Conversion, he says, is like a circle with a 
dot inthe center. Before a man becomes a 
Christian, self and its interests are in the 
center, while God and his interests are 
on the outer rim. Conversion is the proc- 
ess by which the center is shifted so that 
God and his interests become of first im- 
portance, which automatically puts selfish 
interests on the outside. Wealth, when 
valued for itself, leaves no room in the 
heart of man for God. Yet wealth may 
help a man to serve God, provided he 
looks on his possessions as a sacred trust 
and values property, not for its own sake, 
but as an instrument of service? 

The rich young ruler came to Jesus, 

151 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


honestly desiring to find the kingdom. He 
knew the commandments; these he had 
kept from his youth up. Clean, fine, strong 
—Jesus loved him and saw infinite possi- 
bilities in his life. But he was possessed 
by the lure of money. The ‘much pos- 
sessions’’ had gotten hold of him. Money 
—things—had been established in the center 
of his heart, and he could not push them out 
to make room for God. His money came 
first, and his heart followed where his 
treasure was. He went away sorrowful, 
having sold for things the privilege of fol- 
lowing the Master, and the inheritance of 
eternal life. 3 


THe Fatsz Emprasis ON THINGS 


The disciples were not quite ready to 
put zhings in their proper place. They had 
given up their regular occupations at the 
call of Jesus, but they were still a little 
troubled. “‘What shall we eat,’’ they 
asked; ‘‘and wherewithal shall we be 
clothed?’ Jesus sends things spinning to 
— 8Markx.22. 4Matthewvigz 

152 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


their place by his answer. Why do you 
give thought to these things? He asked 
them: Do you not know that you cannot 
be about the work of the kingdom if you 
are always worrying about what you have 
given up and how you are going to get 
along? Do you not know that life is more 
than food and the body more than cloth- 
ing? Do younot know that the Father who 
clothes the lily knows that you need these 
things? Stop handicapping your work by 
such useless fretting over things. ‘Seek 
first the kingdom.”’ 

It was this overemphasis on things for 
which Jesus gently rebukes Martha. We 
can see her about her work, planning an 
elaborate meal, nervous lest everything 
should not be perfect on this day the Mas- 
ter comes, a little indignant that Mary 
should leave her to do it alone. ‘‘Master, 
speak to my sister that she help me!’’ 
Jesus sees what her soul is missing, that 
the spiritual values are crowded out be- 
cause there is no time for them when she 
is careful and troubled about many rhings. 


253 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Gently and kindly, Jesus tells her that his 
soul needs understanding, and apprecia- 
tion, and sympathy with his message, 
more than his body needs elaborately pre- 
pared food. Mary had chosen the better 
part.5 

We wonder what Jesus would say to the 
man who wants to give his family every- 
thing and gets so engrossed in doing it that 
he gives them everything but himself. He 
wants his boy to have a start in life, con- 
sequently he works so hard to build up his 
business that there is never time to read 
with his boy, to hike with him, to play 
with him, to be a chum and companion, to 
share his life. ‘‘Martha-fathers,’’ these— 
they are careful and troubled about giving 
their children material advantages while 
the children starve for companionship 
and food for the soul. 

And those ‘‘Martha-mothers,’’ whose 
children must have embroidered dresses, 
whose houses must be spotless, whose meals 
must be perfect—they are the mothers who 


AT BINA NS FN 
SLuke x. 42. 


154 





Money in Our Scale of Values 


have never learned that a nervous headache 
which throws a gloom over the household 
is too dear a price for an embroidered dress, 
that a picnic supper on the back steps with 
a mother fresh and companionable is better 
than a perfect dinner with mother too 
tired to be pleasant or interested. The 
world has too many mothers who put the 
house before the home, who are perfect 
housekeepers, and not homemakers at all, 
who place so much emphasis on the mate- 
rial needs of their families that they have 
neither time nor strength to give to the 
fine things of loving understanding, com- 
panionship, and guidance in the growth 
of the soul. The Mary who was respon- 
sible for the verses which follow may not 
be a poet, but she has caught the Master's 
scale of values. 
‘‘Martha’s house is swept and garnished, 
Full of treasures rare— 
Through drawn shades the daylight scarcely 
Dares to enter there. 


CMine’s a simple home with sunshine 
Streaming everywhere!) 


455 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


Prim and dainty, Martha’s children, 
Reared by rote and rule, 

(My strong, sun-browned brood are pupils 
At Dame Nature’s school: 

Lesson rooms, the fields, the orchards, 
And the swimming pool!) 


Martha’s husband thinks in terms 
Of stocks and motor cars. 

(Mine—God bless him—often fails 
To lock the pasture bars— 

Comes in late to supper nights, for 
Gazing at the stars!) 


In our world of many women, 
Always there must be 
Marthas who take love and service 
- Too unsmilingly; 
But the Marys—of life’s largesse 
O, how rich are we!’’6 
We place so much emphasis on the 
things which do not matter. We are 
deeply concerned about living in a correct 
neighborhood and sending our children 
to the right school. It matters tremen- 
dously whether or not our car is of the 
latest model and that we get into the 
right club or that our son gets into the 
right fraternity. It matters a lot if our 


6Mazie V. Caruthers (from a newspaper clipping). 
156 


“ww 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


furniture is not antique, and our rugs just 
so, and our china and silver as fine as our 
friends have. It counts a lot whether the 
children dress as well as the neighbors’ 
and have as much spending money. We 
are slaves to things, and we have not the 
coutage to break away. Many families 
would be happier if they had the courage 
to live in smaller houses in less fashionable 
neighborhoods, to garden instead of golf, 
and to picnic instead of dining at the club. 

“I don’t believe in having children un- 
less you can give them advantages,’ a 
woman told me recently. She thought 
they could not afford to give a child ad- 
vantages; yet they could and did afford a 
car, clubs, movies, parties, solid silver, 
and fine linen. Her idea of giving a child 
advantages was that it might have its 
every wish gratified, that it might never 
know the meaning of sacrifice or hardship. 
Bringing up a child so may take account 
of its body, but it overlooks the soul. No 
wonder that the families where sacrifice 
and service and perhaps some hardships 

157 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


are required develop upright character, 
unselfishness, independence, tolerance, 
and initiative. We wonder if handed- 
down and made-over clothes, the dis- 
cipline that comes of sacrifice, the train- 
ing and consideration that come of help- 
ing with the household tasks, the ex- 
ample of a father’s and mother’s abiding 
love for each other and willingness to sac- 
rifice for each other and the children, may 
not be the real “‘advantages’’ to which 
children are entitled. 

This does not imply that children should 
be denied the material things which make 
life pleasant and happy. Every child hasa 
right to a happy childhood with all its 
normal pleasures. Every child has a right 
to a home where there are books and pic- 
tures, music and flowers. It should be the 
effort of all parents to give their children 
these things. ‘There are homes where 
children are handicapped by a lack of 
actual necessities, and there are other 
homes where children’s whole lives have 
been colored by a dark and unlovely 

158 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


childhood. On the other hand, there 
are many children who are harmed 
by too much indulgence as there are 
those who suffer from too little. The 
essential thing lies, not in the poverty or 
the riches, but in the place things have in 
the home and in the lives of the children. 
Rich parents may hopelessly spoil their 
children, or they may teach them the mean- 
ing of sacrifice and service and the suprem- 
acy of spiritual things. Poor parents 
make of their poverty a curse or a bless- 
ing as they let its harshness or bitter- 
ness be uppermost or as they bring out of 
it lessons of resourcefulness and ingenuity, 
cooperation and helpfulness, and the abil- 
ity to take into the home the countless 
joys which are not bought with gold. 

Not long ago a magazine told the story 
of a Methodist preacher who lived in Lon- 
don on a salary of seven hundred and fifty 
dollars a year. He had a wife and five 
daughters. Bringing up five daughters on 
seven hundred and fifty dollars a year 
would not seem to allow for many material 

159 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


advantages. If circumstances were sim- 
ilar to those of other homes maintained 
on such a salary, the busy mother doubt- 
less had cooking and dishwashing, clean- 
ing, mending, and sewing to do. More 
than likely the children had to help with 
the dishes and the dusting and get their 
lessons by themselves. But these girls 
grew up. Four of the five married. The 
first became Lady Edward Burne-Jones, 
wife of the great artist. The second be- 
came Lady Edward Poynter, wife of the 
president of the Royal Academy and mother 
of Sir Hugh Poynter, one of the big steel 
men of Canada. The third married John 
Kipling, and became the mother of Rud- 
yard Kipling. The fourth married a man 
named Baldwin. Her son is a former 
prime minister of England. Poor little 
girls! It was too bad that they could not 
have had “‘advantages!’’ 

In spite of the frequent thrusts at the 
manners and morals of preachers’ children, 
the fact remains that a larger proportion 
of ministers’ children attain distinction 

160 


Es Tl eee 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


than the children of the men of any other 
profession. There have been three preach- 
ers’ sons in the White House, and seven 
daughters of the parsonage have been 
there. Nine of the signers of the Decla- 
ration of Independence were sons of min- 
isters. In proportion to their number 
preachers’ sons would be entitled to one 
name in two hundred in ‘“Who’s Who.”’ As 
a matter of fact there isonein twelve. Cer- 
tainly material advantages cannot account 
for the success of these children, for very few 
ministers can be said to be rich. Particu- 
larly was this true of the past generation of 
preachers whose children’s names now lead 
the list in ““Who’s Who.”’ We must look 
for other than material advantages for the 
secret of their success. May we not expect 
to find the cause in the fact that the real 
minister is a man of ideals, that he puts 
spiritual values first, that service and 
sacrifice are ever before the children in such 
homes, that a worthy cause is given pre- 
cedence over pleasure when the family 
funds are limited, that good books come 
11 161 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


before a new dress? After all, is the best 
legacy to a child money or property which 
he will be tempted to dissipate and mis- 
use, or is it sound health, good habits, an 
education, a spirit of tolerance and inde- 
pedence, habits of thrift, and high ideals? 
Any child who is bequeathed these moral 
and spiritual values by the training of wise 
parents is far richer than any amount of 
worldly goods can make him. Thrice 
blessed is that child whose parents love 
with too much wisdom to give him the 
cold stones of ¢hings instead of the bread of 
understanding and sympathy and guidance 
into life’s deepest and finest realities. 
Jesus knew how easily men’s scale of 
values could be distorted, and how easily 
things could get hold of a man and crowd 
out finer values. When he warned men to 
lay up treasures in heaven rather than on 
earth, it was not because he thought that 
money should be despised, but because a 
man’s heart follows where his treasure is, 
and those who treasure material things 
162 





Money in Our Scale of Values 


will find things crowding out the spiritual 
value and getting first place in the heart. 
Jesus told of a rich farmer whose barns 
were filled to overflowing, and who had 
abundant crops yet ungathered. Unmind- 
ful of the insidious hold of money on his 
heart, he was planning to build yet great- 
er barns that he might keep his treasure all 
to himself. In anticipation of the things 
which all his money would buy he said, 
‘Soul, thou hast much goods laid up, 
. eat, drink, and be merry.’’ He saw 
no other need. He thought that life lay 
in possessions. He had laid up material 
things for his body as though one’s soul 
could feed on things. There had been no 
deeds of love and mercy, no widows whom 
he had helped, no orphans fed, no stores 
of love and friendliness—only goods. He 
had forgotten that he had a soul, and now 
that poor starved and shrunken soul had 
to go forth and leave the well-filled barns 
behind. No wonder Jesus said that a 
man’s life does not consist in the abundance 
of things which he possesses. No wonder 
163 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


he asks what it shall profit a man if he 
gain the whole world and lose his soul.7 
When Jesus finished this story, it looks 
as if, as he often did, he read the minds of 
his hearers. It was as if he could hear 
their thoughts and know that they were 
thinking that it served the rich fool right. 
He knew that they were feeling self-right- 
eously, that it did not apply to them, 
since they were poor men, for Jesus added: 
‘So is every one who lays up treasure for 
himself and is not rich toward God.”’ 
Jesus was talking to poor men, in the 
main, but he knew that the poor in 
this world’s goods can also be poor to- 
watd God and can desire worldly riches 
rather than riches of the soul. Jesus 
warned his followers to beware of covet- 
ousness.8 And covetousness is not pos- 
session, but desire. It is not our money or 
our possessions that put us in a class with 
therichfool. Itis the way we feel about them. 
The love of money is gnawing at the heart 
of many a bookkeeper and bank clerk, of 
"TMark viii. 36. 8Lukexii.ty. 


164 





Money in Our Scale of Values 


many a salesgirl and stenographer, at the 
heart of the farmer and of the cook. We 
misquote Paul when we say that money is 
the root of evil. Paul said the Jove of 
money—and men may love it equally, 
though one bea millionaire and the other 
have not acent! 


THINGS AND THE FINER VALUES 


Judas gives us the sorrowful picture of a 
man who lets greed and the love of money 
get first place in his heart. We shudder at 
the thought of Judas selling his Lord for 
thirty pieces of silver. But is Judas’ sin 
much greater than that of those who put 
money first? What of the man who sacri- 
fices a principle for money, the man who 
sacrifices the lives of little children because 
he can employ them cheaper than men? 
Has he not sold honesty and the freedom 
of childhood for money? What of the man 
who becomes so busy making money that 
he has no time to be a companion to his 
boy or to give himself to his family? Has 
he not sold the fine values of companion- 

165 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


ship, influence, and the spiritual culture of 
his children for things? What of the moth- 
er who spends so much in keeping up ap- 
pearances that there is nothing left for 
great books and music and pictures? 
What of those homes where carpets and 
draperies and curtains are of more value 
than children’s happiness and the after 
yeats with a golden memory of home 
where comfort and love and fellowship 
were unhampered? What of the families, 
living beyond their incomes, where chil- 
dren learn false standards and parents 
grow nervous and are cross and unlovely 
in their struggle to move ina circle beyond 
their means? 

“She married well.’’ How often we 
hear it, and how invariably it means that 
she married a man who had money or a 
good business or social position. ‘‘She 
married well.’’ It does not mean that the 
man is fine and clean and upright. It does 
not mean that he shares her tastes and 
ideals. It does not mean that his scale 


of values matches her own. It does 
166 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


not mean that his life is dedicated to 
service and fine living. When will we 
cease to measure all values by the dol- 
lar mark? 

It is encouraging to know that, in spite 
of the criticism hurled at them, many of 
the youth of to-day are finding the Mas- 
ter’s scale of values. Never have so many 
of them asked, ‘‘How can I make my life 
count?’ A few years ago a Georgia foot- 
ball star turned down an offer of ten thou- 
sand dollars a year and went to a South 
American mission field at a salary of fif- 
teen hundred a year. A Virginia boy left 
wealth and social position and a brilliant 
future as a surgeon to go to a primitive 
tribe in Africa as a medical missionary. 
His mission board pays hima bare support. 

‘Are you sorry that you went?’’ [asked 
a returned missionary who had been in- 
valided home, although he had been a star 
athlete when he went out only a few years 
before. 

‘Sorry I went!’’ There was scorn in his 
voice. “‘If this tricky heart of mine should 

167 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


put me out of business to-morrow, I should 
still count those three years on the field 
worth a lifetime of ordinary work.’’ And 
to one who knew the service to the world 
which he had crammed into that brief 
stay on the field, there was no question 
but that if life were counted in deeds, 
rather than years, he had lived long and 
well. 

What is your scale of values? When you 
admit a renegade into your home because 
he is rich, you are bowing down to money. 
When you choose your friends on the basis 
of what they have rather than what they 
are, you are putting material things first. 
When a Church puts a man on its official 
board in the face of dishonest dealing 
which he shrewdly keeps within the law, 
because that man gives liberally, that 
Church is selling out to things. A man 
who knows that he ought to be a preacher 
or a teacher but who goes into business sole- 
ly because there is more money in business 
is putting money first. The girl who 
chooses her husband on the basis of his 

168 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


rating with Dun and Bradstreet is selling 
her soul to things. The mother who cares 
more about how the children look than © 
how they think and feel is a long way 
from Jesus’ scale of values. The man who 
swerves from the right to put through a 
deal is letting things push God out of his 
life. 


“Like the men of old, we vote his death, 
Lest his life should interfere 
With the things we have or the things we crave, 
Or the things we hold more dear. 


Christ stands at the bar of the world to-day 
As he stood in the days of old. 
Let each man tax his soul, and say, 
‘Shall I again my Lord betray 
For my gteed, or my goods, or my gold2’’’? 


How do you feel about money? It is not 
what we have but our attitude toward it 
that counts. It is where we place money 
in our scale of values that matters. Stew- 
ardship places no value on property except 
as it is used for the purposes of God. Jesus 
valued things only for what they could do 
for persons. If we call ourselves Chris- 
tians, we must acknowledge our steward- 


ig 9John Oxenham, in ‘‘All’s Well.’’ 
169 


Jesus’ Teaching on the Use of Money 


ship. If weclaim to follow the Master, we 
must accept his scale of values. If we 
would have the privilege of partnership 
with the Father, we must use our posses- 
sions according to his will. It will require 
faith to revise our scale of values. It will 
require courage to set up new standards. 
But the Master waits to walk with us the 
High Road of the Father’s will. 


“If we would build anew and build to stay, 
We must find God again and go his way.” 





QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND STUDY 
CHAPTER VI. MONEY IN OUR SCALE OF VALUES 


Purpose: To show the supremacy of spiritual things in Jesus’ 
scale of values and to bring home the realization that the real 
test of our stewardship lies in our acceptance of the same scale of 
values that Jesus had. 


1. What is the real test of our stewardship? 

2. What conilict of material and spiritual] values did Jesus face 
in the beginning of his ministry? Howdidhesettlet' uestion? 

3. Why is{it not possible for one to serve both God and mammon? 
Does this mean that a rich man cannot serve God? 

4. What is William James’ illustration of conversion? Accord- 
ing to this, when would the possession of riches make it im- 
possible for a man to serve God? What was the trouble with the 
tich young ruler? Was it his possessions or the way he felt about 
them that barred him from the kingdom? 

170 


Money in Our Scale of Values 


5- What answer did Jesus give to the disciples when they were 
troubled about things? Do we spend too much time in the pur- 
suit of purely material things? 

6. Why did Jesus say that Mary had chosen the better part ? 
What was Martha putting first? How many ‘‘Martha-fathers’’ 
do you know? Is your home a place where things are put first? 
Do you put the house before the home? 

7. Do you know any families who would be happier if they had 
the courage to change their standards of living? 

8. What are the real advantages to which children areentitled? 
How many of these can be bought with money? 

g. Which is a greater curse, too much money or too little? Are 
poverty and riches a blessing or acurse in themselves, or is it our 
attitude toward them which counts? How many great men do 
you know who came out of poor homes? How many from rich 
ones? How many from average homes? 

10. How do you account for the fact that a larger proportion 
of the children of ministers attain distinction than the children 
of an equal number of men from any other profession? 

11. What was the trouble with the rich farmer? What did he 
count of first importance? 

1z. Does one have to be rich to be like the rich fool? Is it 
money or the way we feel toward money that counts? 

13. Do you know any people to-day who have the same scale 
of values that Judas had? 

14. What do people mean when they say that *‘a girl marries 
well’’? What should it mean? 

15. How do you feel about money? Are things essential to your 
happiness? 

16. Have you compared your scale of values with Jesus’ stand- 
ards? Make a list of the things which he counted of first im- 
portaace. Will you dare accept his scale of values? 


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